


bloody fists and a bleeding heart

by cometgirl



Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, but honestly who doesn't lol, but it's okay we love her, fighting??, inspired by kie doing nothing in literally every fight, kiara is a strong independent women who happens to have feelings for JJ, lots of feelings were felt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 27,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24247321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cometgirl/pseuds/cometgirl
Summary: Okay, okay, listen. It's not Kie's fault that she doesn’t know how to fight.(aka Kie makes JJ and Pope teach her how to fight + more feelings than anyone knows what to do with)
Relationships: JJ & Kiara & Pope (Outer Banks), JJ/Kiara (Outer Banks)
Comments: 81
Kudos: 453





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so i noticed that in like every fight the boys get into, kie just kinda stands there and yells at them, which is understandable, but also kie's such a go-getter that i feel like she'd want to do something about that.
> 
> and this was supposed to be like 4k or something short and then i finished and it's like 14k and i don't know how that happened ??? actually i do, lots of feelings got involved that i did not originally plan lol oh well

Okay, okay, listen. It's not Kie's fault that she doesn’t know how to fight.

Yeah, she did grow up on The Cut, but before high school fist fights weren’t exactly a thing. Call the cut as violent or rough as you want, but before she went to the Kook Academy, she had never seen an actual hook and jab kinda fight, like the ones you see on TV. 

Sure, sometimes things got a little messy between her boys, but never fists in your face kind of messy. They would just push and shove at each other until someone (usually Kiara) would break it up. 

-

The first time she actually witnesses a full on fist fight is during her Kook year, when she’s still friends with Sarah. Rafe is beating on some kid from the main high school, the one that the rest of the Pogues go to. 

Both of their arms are flying around, but Rafe manages to somehow pin the kid to the ground. Rafe’s fists go into the kid’s mouth, and he looks up at Rafe with bloody teeth and spits. He may be underneath him, but he’s not powerless. 

Sarah’s grip on her arm tightens and Kie realizes she should probably look away. But it's like watching a car crash: she just can’t. A knot forms in her stomach. The kid was delivering some kind of package and it just so happened to be late. 

Have you heard the saying ‘don’t shoot the messenger’? Yeah, well Rafe obviously hadn’t and almost literally shot the messenger. 

The kids' blood and spit gets all over Rafe’s face, and he scowls and stands up. The kid scrambles in an attempt to sit up, but before he can, Rafe’s foot connects with his side in a kick. 

“I’d suggest you stay down there, you piece of shit,” Rafe snarls, bending down and fisting the front of the kids shirt, “That’ll teach you to get my shit to me on time.” 

He straightens and pulls up his shirt to wipe the spit and blood from his face. When he’s done, he immediately makes eye contact with Sarah. 

Kie’s heart stops.

Sarah and Kiara had been just around the corner from the foyer where it happened. They had been planning to leave her house and hang out around town, when they almost walked into the fight that was about to occur and Sarah had yanked her into the next room with fear in her eyes. 

“The fuck are you lookin’ at?”

Sarah just turns around and grabs Kiara’s hand to follow her as she heads back up to her room. So much for spending the day in town. 

“You better not tell Dad,” Rafe shouts at them as they run up Sarah’s spiral staircase, breathing hard from the quick sprint and from what they had just witnessed. 

In the end, Sarah tells her Dad and apologizes profusely to Kiara. Kie doesn’t know if she actually meant it or if she was just embarrassed for someone else to see that side of her brother. 

Kie brushes it off, but something doesn’t sit right. That kid had been from the cut, and while she didn’t know him personally, he achingly reminds her of the Pogues. Her boys that she abandoned as soon as the Queen of the Kooks had taken her into her orbit. 

-

The first time Kiara is actually in a fight is isn’t as much of a fight, more like something that every girl goes through, even when it really shouldn’t happen at all. Luckily, Kie had JJ to back her up, in her ‘tussle,’ as he called it. 

It takes a while though. She gets dropped by Sarah and feels a mixture of blindness and whiplash (and maybe a little bit of heartbreak too). They’d been friends for six solid months, six months of being completely cut off from the Pogues. 

(Sometimes she wonders if she deserved what happened to her. She cut off John B, Pope, and JJ, and then she got cut off from Sarah. Like the universe was saying, Here, see how you like it, bitch.) 

She doesn’t go back to them immediately, too embarrassed, too ashamed, and too guilty to go running back to the boys. Instead she turns into the person she was before Sarah: friendless in Kook Academy. She floats through life, being, quite literally, a fish out of water. 

Eventually she makes her way back. It starts small, actually acknowledging Pope when he comes to drop off groceries at her parent’s restaurant, where she picked up as many shifts as possible to take up her time (plus, less time to think about what an absolute idiot she’s been). 

He seems shocked by her simple, ‘Hey Pope’ and it breaks her heart. They exchange pleasantries, Pope looking like a deer in headlights the whole time. 

It becomes a routine, Pope dropping off groceries and then staying to talk for a bit (Sometimes she wonders if he tells the boys about their talks. A small part of her hopes he does). 

After enough time has passed, Kie crosses her fingers and really hopes Pope has at least a little bit of trust in her, and when he goes to leave, she dares to say what she had wanted to since the first time they talked:

“Hey, uh, tell the boys that I say hi?”

Pope gives her the sweetest smile, like he knows she’s coming home, and nods. 

“Of course.”

-

So it begins. Kie makes her way back to the Pogues. John B takes her back almost immediately, with a big hug and smirk, like he knew it was only a matter of time. 

JJ, on the other hand, is a different story. He gives her a quick hug and a ‘Welcome back,’ but he’s still reserved and Kie can tell that he doesn’t trust her. 

Granted, he hides it well. He’s JJ, her loud, sometimes obnoxious, occasional stoner, almost always hilarious friend, who’s always making jokes and laughing loudly and doing dumb shit. And even though he’s almost always an arm’s length away, Kie still misses him with her whole heart. 

He doesn’t look her in the eye and doesn’t really talk to her. It’s not that he ignores her, it’s more that he talks at the whole group and Kiara just happens to be in the group. John B and Pope are obviously aware of this unspoken tension, and make sure that JJ and Kie are never alone together, one of them always with them, like some kind of friendship chaperone. And it’s not like it’s a problem, they’re always together anyways. It’s just, Kie keeps noticing it. 

But it’s fine. Kie’s abso-fucking-lutely fine. It’s all great. 

-

Until it’s not, and suddenly she’s at a kegger and some Touorn guy is gripping her arm a little too tight to be comfortable. 

She’d been dancing, feeling the music wash over her like the warm night breeze. Usually she drags one of the boys to dance with her, but John B is flirting with a Touron, Pope is attempting to flirt with a Touron, and Kiara hasn’t seen JJ since the party started. So, she spots a guy that has been making eyes at her from across the fire and gestures for him to come over. 

He’s cute enough: tall with brown hair streaked with golden highlights. As he makes his way over to her, he smiles sharply. 

“Wanna dance?” She asks, already moving to the rhythm. Kiara’s got moves and she knows it, and she knows there’s no way he’s gonna reject her with his eyes roaming like that. 

So they dance. His name is Tyler, he’s from California, but he has family in North Carolina, and Kie has to admit, he’s a decent dancer for a gangly white boy. They talk more and he seems nice enough. 

The songs blasting on the speakers get more upbeat and Kie starts to move her hips a little more. Tyler seems delighted by this new improvement, but she doesn’t give him time to savour it as they join dancing with a group of locals and tourists alike. 

At one point, a song reaches its peak and Kie is lowkey grinding on Tyler. Right now, she thinks, is good. She’s happy, the music is great, she’s dancing (with a cute guy, nonetheless), and she can just ignore all her problems. 

Except she can’t. 

The song ends, and so does the series of upbeat dance songs, signalling the upcoming ending of the party. Kie finally spots JJ, and they lock eyes across the group of people, and he motions towards the car. Time to go. 

She turns to her dance partner of the night, “Alright Tyler, it was fun. Catch you around!”

He looks as little shocked as Kiara begins to walk away among the other people that are retiring for the night. 

“Wait!” Tyler’s hand appears around her arm, gripping a little too light to be comfortable, “That’s it, you’re just gonna leave?”

“Uh, yeah dude, party’s over.” She tries to take a step, but he’s still gripping her arm. “Wanna let go of my arm now?”

He ignores her. 

“Come back to my place, my parents are spending the night with my aunt and uncle, it’ll be-”

Kiara cuts him off, “Look I’m sorry, but I’m not interested.”

His grip around her arm tightens as he pulls her closer. Jesus Christ, she’s gonna get a bruise here. 

“That’s not what your body was saying, baby,” he says in a low voice, eyes glinting dangerously and Kie can smell the booze on him. Dread settles in the pit of her stomach. Fuck.

“Let go of me, you creep,” She says as she pulls away. But his hand is still tight on her arm, and as hard as she tries, she can’t thrash out of it. 

“Hey, you’re the one that asked me to dance, bitch.”

“Yeah and now that’s done, so. Let. Me. Go.” With each word, she raises her voice and behind Tyler, she can see JJ noticing her predicament. She doesn’t need his help, she tells herself, but it would be nice if he could get this guy’s fucking hands off of her. 

Just as he leans down to say something that Kie can already assume is going to be some nasty comment, JJ appears besides them. 

“Hey Kie, you good?” He says a little too loudly, and Tyler jumps and lets go of Kiara. Finally.

“Just fine, as long this asshole leaves me alone”

“Woah, woah, woah, I’m the asshole? You’re the fucking tease, you little-”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence because Kie decided to slap him. Hard. 

“Damn,” JJ whispers. 

Tyler looks shocked. For a moment, time stills, and Kie can hear her heart beating loudly in her chest. She really wishes she had chosen some other dance partner. 

The moment breaks, and Tyler charges at her, pushing her down into the sand. Then a lot of things happen at once. He attempts to get Kie pinned under him and she’s yelling at JJ and JJ is yelling at Tyler and JJ is also attempting to pull Tyler off of her and then Kie punches Tyler in the face. 

She’s pretty sure she did it wrong because her fingers probably shouldn’t be hurting this bad (punching is supposed to hurt the other person, right?), but Tyler’s howling and there’s blood coming out of his nose, but he’s still not getting off of her, so Kie knees him where no man wants to kneed. 

JJ takes this opportunity to throw him off of her, and Tyler falls in the sand beside her, still howling and holding his nose. 

Kiara springs up and practically falls into JJ. His arms wrap around her and steady her. His embrace feels nothing like Tyler’s, he’s familiar and smells like weed and sea salt and sweat and Kie melts.

“You okay?”

Kie nods into his shoulder. 

“Remind me never to get you mad,” He chuckles lightly. She nudges his side. 

“Don’t be an asshole and you’ll never have to worry about it,” she banters back. This is the first time since she came back to the Pogues that JJ has acted like, well, her friend, and despite the shitty situation that she’s in, it doesn’t dim the small bit of happiness she gets from that knowledge. 

“Speaking of,” She lightly kicks Tyler, who is still rolling around like a wuss, to get his attention and bends over him so he can meet her eyes, “No fucking means no.” 

He tries to say something, but JJ kicks him significantly harder that Kiara had:

“You heard the scary lady, let it go.” JJ glares at him. Tyler silently glares back, but the effect is made meaningless as he keeps rolling around, in obvious pain. 

JJ leads her away from Tyler and as they’re walking down the beach to meet John B and Pope by the car, it hits her what just happened. 

“I just got in a fight.” She says, a little dumbstruck. 

JJ shakes his hand in a so-so motion, “Ehh, it was more like a tussle.”

Kie mock slaps his arm, “It was totally a fight, I even punched him, “ she pauses and realizes what she just said. “I’ve never punched anyone before.” 

“Well, you know what they say, you never forget your first,” JJ says with an exaggerated wink. They banter all the way back to the van, and despite what just happened with Tyler (yeah, she’s definitely gonna have to unpack that later), she still feels golden by JJ’s side and she’s ridiculously grateful that the awkward tension between them is gone. 

So. That’s Kie’s first fight. 

-

Unfortunately, it’s not her last. In the span of a few weeks, Kie is somehow involved in multiple fights. 

First, Topper almost drowns John B and then JJ pulls out a fucking gun, and Kie is helpless to stop it. Her feet stay glued to the ground, even though she knows she should do something. She could have jumped into the fray, maybe pulled Topper away or pushed him off John B or really done anything at all. But she doesn’t do anything but scream and it’s like her voice is silent judging on how little the boys react to it. 

Second, JJ and Pope do something to piss off the holy trinity of privileged asshole Kooks and they’re getting into a fight behind the screen at the outdoor movie night. This time, Kie does throw herself into the fray, and promptly gets thrown out of it. She doesn’t have the strength to take on one of the guys, and she’s just being realistic. But also realistically, she knows that not all fights are finished by fighting. 

So she sets fire to the movie screen, as one does, and applauds her quick thinking when the fight ends faster than it began; Kooks and Pogues alike scrambling to get away and hopefully not get caught. 

Third, Rafe and Barry ambush them at the boat yard. She slaps Rafe and immediately gets thrown to the ground. She’s helpless to stop them from beating up JJ, until Pope shows up and the odds turn in their favor. But even with the odds in their favor, Kie’s still, you guessed it, helpless. JJ and Pope take on Barry and Rafe, while Kie just kinda stands there and yells at them. 

Barry and Rafe leave, despite Pope almost killing Barry, and everything promptly goes to shit. 

Sure, they get the boat to John B and she kisses Pope (she’s still not sure why she did that, but she really doesn’t have time to unpack that right now) and then they immediately get taken in by the police. 

It gets dark and suddenly a million things happen at once, and when Kie looks back she’ll only be able to remember bits and pieces. John B and Sarah almost got away and then they didn’t. They find The Phantom and then they lose it. Then the worst words that Kie thinks she’s ever heard in her life are said. They’re gone. 

The storm that had been thrashing against the makeshift tent has made its way inside and has burrowed into Kie’s heart. Everything goes cold. JJ’s shoving at Shoupe, and Kiara distinctly remembers thinking, We killed them. Every person in that tent had something to do with John B and Sarah dying. Kie, Pope, and JJ got him The Phantom, and Shoupe and the special agents pushed him into the storm they had no chance of surviving. Is it worse to give a man a gun or to tell him where to shoot? Kiara doesn’t know, but that thought doesn’t leave her head for a long, long time. 

We killed them.

-

The thing is, Kiara’s not a very violent person. She considers herself to be a pacifist and disapproves of any violence or war. But when your best friend and your ex-best friend that you recently reconnected with are dead and it may or may not be your fault, some of your beliefs kinda go out the window. 

This doesn’t mean that Kiara suddenly becomes violence crazy or feels the need to carry a gun to be safe like JJ, but that she wants to learn how to defend herself. She wants to learn how to properly defend herself. 

In the past few weeks, Kiara has been in more fights than she ever wanted to and in every single one she’s felt helpless. She doesn’t want to feel helpless anymore. She may not be able to choose when she happens to be in a fight (God knows it’ll never be voluntarily), but she wants to be able to protect herself and her friends. After so much of her life has spun out of her control, she wants to have this small semblance of control, just so she can tell herself, yeah, she’s definitely in charge (no matter how much of a lie that might be). 

So she comes up with an idea (not a plan, because plans seem to have failed her for the time being). She’s going to ask JJ and Pope to teach her how to fight. 

-

But first she has to talk to Pope. He’s in love with her and they kissed, but Kie doesn’t love him back, not like that, and she owes it to him to actually tell him that. Even if she really, really doesn’t want to. 

It’s been four days since John B and Sarah have gone missing and four days since Kie has seen Pope or JJ. She’s spent the time in a numb haze, drifting between her bed and the restaurant, where she works unnecessary hours despite little to no customers coming in. She’s not really needed there, but she has to escape her thoughts. Especially the one whispering ‘you killed them’ that keeps echoing around her head. 

She’s pretty sure that JJ is staying at the Chateau after he sent her a few basic texts just checking in. She hopes he plans on staying there for as long as possible, because there’s no way in hell that Kiara is going to let him go back to his dad.

(Two days after That Day, Kiara’s traitorous mind reminds her that when Luke Maybank finds out what they did, what JJ did, stealing The Phantom with zero chance of return, that JJ is gonna end up with worse bruises than the ones that she saw littering his body in the hot tub. Kiara curses her brain that makes her think these fucking thoughts and has to take a quick break from work in the bathroom so she can process just what the fuck she’s done. The guilt rattles around a little louder that day.)

Pope is, understandably, grounded. But Kiara has always been Pope’s dad’s favorite friend of his son, so when she, instead of JJ (or John B because he’s dead, Kiara’s brain taunts her) shows up and asks to talk to Pope for a little bit, Heyward actually says yes. 

They sit on the dock behind the shop, shoes almost skimming the water. She really, really doesn’t want to do this. Pope is one of her best friends and she doesn’t want to hurt him.

“Hey, so,” she breaks the silence, and the knot in her stomach solidifies. Okay, so she’s doing this. She takes a breath. “I wanted to say I’m sorry for kissing you and leading you on, but Pope, I’m so sorry, but I as much as I do love you, I don’t love you like that.” She averts her eyes.

“You don’t have to apologize,” he says, and when she does look up, he nods in acceptance or resignation, she doesn’t know, as if he knew this was coming and he’s made his peace with it. “I shouldn’t have shoved all my feelings on to you, especially that night.”

“It’s okay, you know, it was under stressful circumstances,” she forces out a chuckle to lighten the suffocating mood that sounds hollow, even to her.

“Man, I went through more shit in those, like, 48 hours than the rest of my life combined,” Pope jokes and they actually laugh at the sheer absurdity of it. 

It gets quiet for a minute, Kie’s breath held captive in her chest and so many words unsaid on the tip of her tongue. This time Pope breaks the silence. 

“Friends?”

Kie smiles at him, “Friends.”

They do their little Pogue handshake and Pope goes back to work, leaving Kiara on the dock, studying the water. 

-

All three of them are sitting on John B’s dock when Kiara brings up her idea and asks JJ and Pope to teach her how to fight. 

It’s the first time they’ve all been together since a week ago on That Day. Over the past few days Kiara has seen JJ and Pope separately, but not together. She and JJ got high in the Chateau (aka JJ’s unofficial new residence. John B’s uncle said it was fine as long as he kept the place clean) a few nights ago, and Pope had come by to drop off groceries to the restaurant once, but other than that it’s been a weird week.

“That is the stupidest fucking idea I’ve ever heard.”

“JJ!” Kiara scolds, “I’m serious, I want you to teach me to fight.”

“Kie, no offense, but why do you even need to know how to fight? Out of all of us, you’re the least likely to ever start a fight.” Pope says, unhelpfully.

“And aren’t you, like, a pacifist and opposed to violence and shit?” JJ adds. 

Kie ignores him and responds to Pope. “Yeah, I may not be getting in fights, but you two are, and it would help if I knew how to throw a punch or something!”

“Oh, so you want us to teach you how to punch so you can protect us?” JJ asks angrily, and Kiara’s getting more and more frustrated because he doesn’t get it. 

“JJ, would you just listen-”

“I did and I heard you-”

“Well obviously you didn’t-”

“GUYS!” Pope, ever the mediator when Kie and JJ get too hotheaded, breaks up their argument. “Kie, explain yourself. JJ, let her talk, man.”

JJ sharply nods and folds his arms over his chest, displeasure radiating off him in waves. Kie takes a breath. 

“Thanks, Pope. Ok so, remember when Barry and Rafe ambushed us at the boat yard, and, JJ, they were just beating you up, and when I tried to help Rafe just threw me on the fucking ground? And then Pope, you came and actually did something, but I was just kinda standing there, and,” Kie pauses and looks at the boys, JJ looking less angry and more understanding and Pope looking contemplative. She rubs a hand over her face, “I just don’t want to be the one that you guys have to come save, like some kind of damsel in distress. I want to be able to hold my own.”

She makes eye contact with JJ, the one who had been so opposed to her idea, and he matches her look, and nods. 

“Okay, okay. I’ll teach you how to punch.” He points at her, “But that is it, no fancy shit, just a clean and simple punch.” He pokes the air, accentuating each word. 

“Yes!” Kie launches herself at JJ in a hug, his strong arms catching her like he does every time. 

“Thank you,” she whispers into the crook of his neck. He hums in response. 

“Got anything to add, Pope?” she asks as she detangles from JJ. Pope shakes his head, looking a little confused. 

“I, uh, JJ’s taught me everything I know, so he’ll be a good teacher,” Pope says, getting up from his place on the dock, not meeting their eyes. “And, sorry guys, I gotta go, still sorta grounded.”

Pope abruptly turns away from them and leaves. 

“Tomorrow, bright and early, we’re gonna teach Kie to fight!” JJ calls after him. Pope’s only response is a thumbs up thrown in the air, but he doesn’t turn and look back. 

“Do you know what’s up with him?” Kie asks when Pope has disappeared past the Chateau. He had seemed fine when they had hung out as a group before, and despite John B’s disappearance and Kie’s rejection, Pope had seemed, well, as fine as could be, all things considered. 

JJ looks at her, silent for a moment, studying her face. 

“You two aren’t-”

“No.”

“Oh,” JJ digests this information, and for once Kie doesn’t know what he’s thinking. “So, what happened then?”

“I, uh, kissed him,” she says, suddenly nervous to be discussing this with JJ, even though she has literally no reason to be. “Well, you were there for that part. But I don’t love him the way he loves me, and I just couldn’t lead him on, so I told him how I felt.”

She had been studying the planks of the dock, running her thumb nail along the smooth grooves as she talked, but as she finishes she looks up at JJ to see that he’s been studying her. 

“Huh, I’m gonna be honest, I definitely thought you were into him since you kissed him while I was literally right there.” He says, shooting her a playful look. 

She blushes, slightly embarrassed. 

“Hey, you could have looked away!”

This time JJ blushes, faint pink dotting his cheeks. 

“Yeah, but then I would have missed my free show, man.”

“I bet you found that hot, huh?”

“Oh you know it. You and Pope aren’t that bad looking, so I’m not complaining.”

“Lovely, I’m so glad to know that I’m ‘not that bad looking,’ thanks JJ”

“Yeah, I said what I said.”

Their playful banter, that toes the line between flirting and strictly platonic joking around (granted, nothing really new), drops off and they sit contently in comfortable silence. 

As much as the silence has seemed like it would strangle her in these past few days alone, when she’s with JJ it seems manageable. The thoughts in her head slow their cycle and give her time to breathe. She sits back and watches the clouds slowly drifting across the sky. There’s one that slightly resembles a pirate ship, but maybe that's just her mind. 

It’s JJ that breaks the silence, unable to ever be still for longer than five minutes at a time. He clears his throat, “Kie?”

She turns her focus towards him, “Yeah?”

“I’m, uh, sorry that I, uh, snapped at you earlier.” He says, eyes focused on the water. Kiara fully sits up and leans her back against the opposing beam. 

“It’s okay, I mean, you came around in the end,” she gives him a rueful smile. But it’s like JJ doesn’t even hear her words. He rubs his hand across his face and the through his hair and continues:

“It’s just, I don’t want you ever to have to be in that situation, you know, where you actually do have to punch someone,” JJ finally looks up and meets her eyes. “And I know sometimes it’s punch or get punched, but still…” 

Kiara inwardly cringes. There was a connection with JJ between fighting and his dad, one that he probably didn’t want to expose Kiara too, and that she hadn’t even considered. 

“Yeah, I get it.” This time Kiara’s the one that can’t meet JJ’s eyes. “But I don’t want you guys to have to come in like some kind of knight in shining armour anytime there’s trouble.”

A beat passes, and Kie continues staring at the water.

“I’ll take a punch for you anytime,” JJ jokes and it startles Kie out of the delicate, now-dead, moment. She looks up at JJ, who seems very amused with himself, and laughs. “If you ever do need a knight in shining armour-”

“I’ll know who to call,” she finishes, and JJ tips an imaginary hat at her. 

“Pleased to be at your service m’lady.”

“Should I be swooning? I feel like I should be swooning.”

“Oh, you should definitely be swooning, that’s how we knights get paid you know.”

Kiara exaggeratedly swoons and lays back onto the deck, and JJ follows. Their shoulders brush up against each other. 

“JJ?” She asks, now serious. She hears shuffling as he turns to look at her, and she can feel his gaze on her face, but she doesn’t turn to face him, not yet. “You do get it, right? Why I want to learn to punch. So I can protect myself, just in case?”

She turns to return his gaze and finds him studying her face, his eyebrows slightly scrunched. 

“Yeah,” he whispers, “Yeah I get it.”

He studies her a moment longer, and Kie distinctly thinks, I’m okay with this. You would think it’s a very intimate position, their noses only a few inches apart and the feeling of each other’s warm breath on their faces, but it’s not. Until JJ stops studying her face and meets her eyes and a pleasant shock runs through her body. Weird. 

JJ abruptly sits back up and digs though his pocket, pulling out a joint. 

“Want a hit?” 

“God yes.”

-

The next morning, Kie, JJ, and Pope meet up bright and early to teach Kie how to fight. And by bright and early, it’s 11 am and JJ looks like he just rolled out of bed. Kie had stayed with JJ, smoking and talking and avoiding the elephant in their lives that is John B and the slightly smaller elephant that is the fact that neither of them necessarily want to be alone, and they stayed up pretty late. Kie also rolled out of bed about 15 minutes ago, but at least she had coffee already. 

They’re each digging through various sheds on John B’s property because JJ swears that John B once had a punching bag. Along with that supposed punching bag, John B also had (fuck, Kiara hates using past tense to describe her best friend) a ton of random shit. There’s a ton of broken fishing gear, random boat parts, and even some Royal Merchant stuff that Big John must have deemed unnecessary enough to leave in the shed instead of in his locked office.

“Found it!” Pope yells, and Kiara and JJ come running over. Pope pulls out a black punching bag that has definitely seen better days. It’s fading and there are spider webs all over it. 

“Good man, Pope,” JJ says, slapping his back and going to pick it up on the other side. 

They lug it over to a sturdy tree to hang it from as Kiara watches. Honestly, the thing looks like it’s about to fall apart if Kiara taps it too strongly, so she’s not too sure how it will hold up under punches. But beggars can’t be choosers, so Kiara helps steady the bag while JJ scrambles up a tree to tie it up. 

“Alright, m’lady, your punching bag awaits,” JJ jumps off the tree and takes a little bow. 

“So I just,” She mimes a punch at the bag, looking at JJ for guidance. 

He just nods and gestures like get on with it. She expected a little more actual teaching, but, then again, it is JJ. 

Kiara puts her hand into a fist and looks at the punching bag, suddenly feeling very silly. She pulls her arm back and-

“Wait!” Pope grabs her hand, “You’re gonna break your thumb, you can’t tuck it into your hand like that, it has to be outside of your fingers, not inside.”

“Shit, good catch, man,” JJ appraises, looking a little startled. 

“Thanks, Pope,” Kie says. Breaking her thumb would not be ideal. “Show me how?”

“Okay, so what you were doing is this,” He tucks his thumb onto his palm like he’s making a number four and closes his finger around it, doing exactly what Kiara had been doing a second ago. “If you do this, and hit the bag, all the force that you hit it with basically squishes your thumb underneath, and boom, broken thumb.

“So, what you need to do is this,” Pope untucks his thumb from his fingers and places it on the outside of his fingers, on the knuckles of his first and second finger. “Make sure your thumb is on the outside.” 

Kiara fixes her hands so they match Pope’s, her thumb no longer tucked between her fingers. 

“Alright Kie, now show us what we’re working with here,” JJ says, moving behind the bag to steady it. Now feeling much less silly with her hands in the correct position, punches the bag. 

“Okay, that’s actually much harder than I thought it’d be.” Kie pulls back her hand, revealing knuckles tinged with red. 

“Uh huh, not too shabby though. Pope, you wanna hold the bag for a minute?” JJ says, and he and Pope switch places again. 

“Alright, first things first, keep your wrists straight,” JJ says and holds out his hand. “May I?” Kie gives him her arm. 

“You gotta hit the target with these two knuckles,” JJ taps her pointer and middle finger, “so that the power flows in a straight line down your arm.”

His fingers lightly trail down her arm, demonstrating the flow of force, and Kie has to resist the urge to shiver. 

“Try it again,” Pope suggests. JJ steps back, and Kie hits the bag again, this time with straight wrists. 

“Ok, now your stance,” JJ says and points at her legs “Put your left foot here… yup, now right foot behind… knees bent...” 

As JJ adjusts her footing by the slightest bits, Pope tells her why it’s so necessary. “You would think that most of the power of your punch comes from your arm, but it actually comes from the rest of your body. You have to get power from your legs and from your torso, so also keep your core tight.” 

Kie actually finds that really interesting. It’s not just the fist, it’s the whole body working together to make it happen. It also gives Kie hope that she won’t monumentally suck at this; she might not be the strongest person, but if she can harness the force of her body correctly, she’ll be fine. 

“This time try to twist when you punch, really use your whole body,” JJ says, finally done fixing her feet. 

Kie goes for it, no longer focusing on how her fists feel, but how her whole body works at one. She hits the bag, and it feels better than before. She feels strong. 

JJ wolf whistles, “There it is!”

“Good one, Kie,” Pope says from behind the bag, slightly grimacing. “I wasn’t expecting it to be so hard.” 

“Don’t underestimate me, boys” She jokes, secretly pleased at herself. 

“And now blocking.” Before Kiara can even turn to face JJ, he throws his hand into her face, his palm almost touching her nose. Kiara jumps back.

“JJ, what the hell?”

“How are you gonna stop me?” He taunts, and throws his hand into her face again, although slower and obviously telegraphing his movements. Kiara raises her hands up in front of her face and tucks her chin back. JJ’s hand drops before it even reaches her thrown up forearms. 

“Perfect!” He grins cheekily and Kiara swats him. 

“Asshole,” She rolls her eyes exaggeratedly, but can’t keep the smirk off her face. 

“Hey my teaching methods may be alternative, but they work,” JJ defends, then pats the bag. “Now for real this time.”

They practice blocking for a little longer and then tie it all together, JJ making slight adjustments to her form and Pope holding the bag. When JJ has no more changes, he and Pope switch spots, JJ now behind the bag and Pope watching her form. 

As the day continues, the temperature rises and Kiara finds herself dripping sweat. Despite not doing any strenuous activity, both the boys took off their shirts a while ago, and are looking a little hot as well. 

After a particularly hard hit, JJ grunts and pushes the hair out of his face. “Lunch?”

Kie nods, “Yeah, I think I’m done for now.” She looks at her knuckles that have turned a throbbing red and winces. Should they have taped them before? She doubts neither of the boys have ever taped their knuckles to fight. Oh well. 

“Shit, shit, shit, shit!” Pope runs into the house.

Kie and JJ share a look and sprint after him. 

“Pope!” As soon as they get to the door, Pope is already running back out. He almost shoves Kie down in his rush and JJ has to steady her to keep her from falling. 

“Shit, sorry, I gotta go, I’m still under semi-house arrest and I’m supposed to be home in like 5 minutes,” Pope says, talking incredibly fast. “JJ, can I borrow the bike?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course man,” JJ barely gets through his words when Pope is already hightailing it home, leaving the two of them in the dust.

JJ looks at Kiara, both of their faces reflecting obvious confusion. Kiara hadn’t known that Pope was still grounded. JJ shakes out of his confusion.

“So,” He starts, “Lunch?”

Kiara laughs, “Someone has a one track mind.”

-

Kiara discovers that JJ has not gone grocery shopping since he’s taken up residence in the Chateau and promptly drags him to the store. But first they have lunch, which consists of two sandwiches Kie hastily makes in the kitchen of The Wreck. It’s the lunch rush, and Kiara’s presence is glossed over. And besides, no one’s gonna miss a few pieces of bread and slices of meat and cheese. 

After grocery shopping (they split the bill, even though it’s mainly all going to JJ. Kie would offer to pay it all, it’s not even that much, just essentials, but she knows JJ would think of that as some kind of handout. When he pushes back against her paying half, she just reminds him that she spends practically all her time at the Chateau, and barely eats at home anyway. Which is, for the most part, true.), they drop the stuff at John B’s and spend the rest of the day wandering the island. 

It’s nice, Kiara thinks, spending all this time with JJ. She usually doesn’t hang out with just JJ, most of the time John B or Pope would be there with them. But John B is gone and Pope is grounded. So she’s with JJ. And she’s definitely not complaining. With just the two of them, JJ is almost calmer in a way. Not to say that he isn’t hotheaded, because, oh boy, he still is and he continues to do dumb shit to get a reaction out of Kie, but it’s toned down compared to how he is when he’s around other people. He no longer has an audience of three or more, now it’s just Kie. Kie, who has seen him at him best and worst and happiest and most pissed off. Also, ever since ‘The Night of The Hot Tub’ as Kie has started calling it in her head, there’s an understanding between them. 

-

The remaining Pogues begin to develop a bit of a routine. In the mornings, JJ and Pope teach Kie to punch, so far she’s learned to jab and cross. It calms Kie, knowing how to defend herself. She feels not only safer, but also stronger.

Then, Pope goes home, where Heyward makes him work and research other scholarship opportunities to apply to, and Kiara and JJ hang out together for the rest of the day. They hang around town, go fishing, smoke, hang out on the boat, or just relax and Kiara will play her ukulele and JJ will crack stupid jokes. 

Sometimes Pope will escape his house after dinner and come find them, sometimes not. Kiara gets used to it just being her and JJ. 

-

The problem is you can’t avoid your problems forever, as much as you wish and hope and pray you can. 

About two weeks after That Day, Shoupe shows up at the Chateau. 

They don’t notice him at first: JJ’s demonstrating how to do a hook and Pope is holding the bag, while Kiara watches the muscles under JJ’s shirt shift with each movement. It’s so she can mimic those movements herself, she tells herself, JJ’s muscles just happen to be right there and just happen to look very nice. 

Shoupe clears his throat and they all jump, unaware that anyone else was there. 

“Hey Officer,” Pope says, nervously, “Is there a problem?” 

Nine times out of ten cops mean trouble, and Kie doesn’t expect this to be the one exception. 

“Just coming to say that,” He pauses and looks up at them, and Kie can already tell that whatever he’s about to say is not going to be good, “We found The Phantom.”

No. No. No, no, no, no, no.

JJ’s goes slack beside her and she hears Pope whisper ‘fuck’ under his breath. Kie’s mind just goes blank, she can’t imagine a world where John B and Sarah are-

“They’re gone. I’m sorry.” And the worst part is, that despite the fact that Shoupe and the special agents drove them into the storm, Shoupe genuinely seems devastated.

“So you found their bodies?” Pope asks. For a second, Kiara thinks, it’s okay, Pope, their resident expert on death and dead bodies, can just go and confirm that whatever bodies they found are not John B’s or Sarah’s. Because they can’t be dead. That little spark of hope dies as Shoupe shakes his head. 

“There’s no way they survived that storm, kids, I’m sorry. I thought y’all deserved to hear it straight, and not as some town gossip.” Shoupe turns to leave, and pauses, “I really am sorry about this.”

Shoupe leaves and they all just stand there in shock. It’s a stark contrast between That Day, when everything was happening at once, and now, when the world just stops. Kiara sits down on the ground and puts her head in her hands and just tries to breathe. John B and Sarah are dead. John B and Sarah are dead. John B and Sarah are dead. 

After a second, Kie hears JJ collapse onto the ground next to her. His body falls against hers, so she lifts her head out of her hands, and she shuffles so that JJ’s head falls in her lap. 

His eyes are squeezed shut and he’s breathing hard and Kie knows that if she looks at him any longer she’s going to break down completely. Instead she focuses on an ant on the ground and runs her shaking hand across JJ’s hair. The ant moves in messy, frantic lines that she tries to focus on as she breathes. 

Pope doesn’t follow their trend of sitting on the ground and says he’s going to leave, his voice muffled to Kiara’s ears. She only registers it when he walks away. In some back neuron pathway in her brain, she knows that it’s too early for him to be leaving, he should stay, the Pogues need each other right now, but she doesn’t stop him. She just keeps running her fingers through JJ’s hair and watching the ant. 

-

After what feels like hours, and is probably only minutes later, Kie looks down at JJ, just to find that he’s looking up at her. 

“Are you gonna leave too?” JJ asks, his voice wrecked. A small part of Kiara wants to go home and burrow herself in blankets and just fucking sob her heart out, but a bigger part of Kiara knows that being alone would make the pain worse. Kie shakes her head. 

“No,” she sniffles, suddenly realizing that she’s been crying. JJ nods and slowly crawls out of her lap and stands up. Kiara immediately misses the warmth of his body. JJ runs hot, and despite the warm temperature, Kie feels like she’s freezing. 

“C’mon,” he says and starts walking away. Kie gets up, and follows him to the dock and then down to the boat. 

They spend the rest of the day in the marsh under the guise of fishing. Well JJ attempts to fish and Kie watches. For the most part, they’ve been silent and Kie doesn’t think she’s ever seen JJ so despondent. He even moves slowly, like all his energy that constantly keeps him moving has been drained. But then again, that’s also how Kie feels. 

JJ continues to attempt to fish, catching nothing, until he can pretend no longer. Then he rolls a joint and they smoke. They lay on the floor of the boat, each of them stuck in their own thoughts. 

In a way, Kie knew this was coming, she knew it since That Day, and Shoupe had just confirmed her thoughts. It almost makes it easier, not having as much hope. It’s a horribly cynical view, she thinks, but with less hope, there’s less to lose and it doesn’t hurt as much. High expectations only bring disappointment and, in this case, heartbreak. 

At one point, her thoughts get so turbulent that she rashly grabs JJ’s hand. He obviously doesn’t mind, and holds onto her with a death grip. It doesn’t bother Kie because she’s doing the same to him. They’re each other’s lifeboats. (This thought makes Kiara cringe because that’s exactly what John B and Sarah didn’t have. Fuck.) 

It starts getting dark and JJ disengages his hand from Kie so he can drive them home. The weed begins to wear off and Kie can practically feel the weight of her thoughts increase. 

Lifeboats. 

Likejackets-

“JJ!” Kie breaks the silence as they pull into the dock. In response, JJ just tosses her the rope to tie them off. “Did The Phantom have life jackets?”

JJ’s head shoots up, his eyes wide as he understands what Kie’s implying. 

“I-fuck! I don’t know,” He runs his hands through his hair, distraught, “I don’t remember.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay, uh, long was it in storage?” Fuck having no hope, maybe hope is what you need to survive. 

“A long time,” JJ steps out of the boat, obviously thinking hard. This is the most alive that Kie’s seen him since Shoupe came by. 

“Okay, but there’d be no reason to take them out, right?”

JJ grimances, “My dad might’ve taken them out and sold them or something. Shit, I don’t know.”

“It’s okay, it was just an idea,” She says. It was just an idea, a desperate lunge at hope. Is this one of the stages of grief, Kiara wonders, denial or bargaining or something.

“I’m sorry,” JJ whispers, sounding utterly disappointed in himself. Kiara grabs his hand as she steps onto the dock, both to steady herself and to comfort JJ. 

“I know,” She squeezes his hand and they walk to the house together. 

-

Kiara texts her mom and asks if she can spend the night at the Chateau. Usually she wouldn’t ask and would just do it, but recently she’s learned what it’s like to lose someone, and she doesn’t want her mom to feel that kind of pain anymore. Surprisingly, her mom says yes. She’s probably heard the final verdict on John B and Sarah and understands what her daughter is feeling right now, or at least Kie hopes she does. 

JJ and Kie lay on the foldout coach, a movie playing in the background that neither of them pay attention to. It’s pretty late and Pope still hasn’t come by, despite the texts that both of them have sent him, and Kie’s starting to give up hope. 

Distantly, in a part of her brain that isn’t completely zeroed in on the fact that her friends are dead, she worries that this is going to split up the remaining Pogues. She knows there’s some kind of statistic on couples that go through a child’s death and end up divorced, and she’s fairly sure that number is pretty high. Pope would probably know. 

Not that they’re parents or children, but traumatic events like death either bring people closer or tear them apart. Kie really hopes the Pogues are the former. 

“We’re staying together, right?” Kie breaks the silence. 

JJ looks at her. He had been half watching the movie and half fiddling with the fraying seams of one of the blankets. “What?”

“Like, this isn’t gonna break us apart? We’re still gonna be friends and-” She doesn’t get to finish because JJ suddenly understands what she’s trying to say and throws his arms around her, landing them in an awkward kind of hug with JJ basically fully on top of her.

“Nope, that’s against the rules. Pogues for life,” He says into the crook of her neck. And Kiara appreciates the reassurance, she really, really does, but JJ is directly on top of her lungs. 

“JJ, you’re kinda squishing me, dude,” Kie says, and JJ immediately pulls back. Kie misses his contact and shifts over so that she’s now resting on his shoulder and chest. “This okay?”

He puts his arm around her and hums in response. Kie can feel the vibration of it. 

“Thank you,” Kie whispers, not sure if she’s thanking him for reassuring her or for letting her get close to him. Probably both.

“Anytime,” JJ murmurs into her hair.

Time passes and the movie ends and this time JJ breaks the silence. 

“I always thought, you know, that I’d feel it, or something. Like how John B thought he’d be able to feel it when his dad died. Like that.” He sniffles, and Kie wonders if he’s going to cry. He hadn’t cried all day, even when he had first collapsed into Kie’s lap earlier, and Kie doesn’t know any other way to deal with this other than to cry it out. “But I didn’t feel it, Kie, I didn’t-” 

JJ’s voice breaks and, there it is, Kie thinks, he starts crying. They grip each other and soon enough Kie’s crying too. Sobs wrack their bodies and tears stain their shirts and Kie feels so exposed, like her heart has been flayed open, and around anyone else Kie would be insecure about ugly crying like this, but it’s JJ. By the time they finish, they’re both absolute messes, snotty and wet from tears, with red-rimmed eyes and flushed cheeks. 

They lay together, chests rising and falling in sync for a minute, and come down from that emotional rollercoaster. 

Kie then leads JJ to the bathroom and wipes the tears, snot, and sweat from both their faces. It’s ridiculously intimate, and Kie is surprised that JJ is letting her do this. Granted, he’s in no position to argue: he looks like he can barely stand up straight, as if all his usual energy has been sucked into the ground. 

As she goes to leave, JJ turns down the hallway towards the guest room, his unofficial room when John B had still been living there. 

“Wait,” She says and JJ turns back to look at her. “Um, do you wanna, ah, share the pull-out?”

“Are you sure, Kie?”

“Yeah, I, uh, don’t wanna be alone.” 

JJ just looks at her, and she scrambles, “I mean, if you don’t want to, it’s fine, you know, I don’t wanna pressure you or anything.”

JJ gives her the smallest smile, “Alright, alright, I’m coming.”

So they sleep together. Just sleep. And it just happens to be in the same bed. They don’t even touch before they fall asleep. (And Kiara will forever deny this, but she misses his contact.)

-

The next morning is a different story. When Kiara wakes up from the sun streaming in through the windows, she’s completely entangled with JJ. Sometime in the night they had gravitated towards each other and ended up in a human knot. Kie’s surprised she hadn’t woken up sooner, one of her arms and one of her legs are asleep and she had been tucked into JJ’s chest, who should be considered as a furnace with how hot he runs. (He also hadn’t worn a shirt to bed, so Kie had been pressed up against his bare chest, and you know, maybe there’s another reason she feels so hot.)

JJ looks so peaceful when he’s asleep and Kie would love to lay here longer with him, but she also really needs to pee. So she carefully extracts her arm out from under JJ’s back and her leg out from between his, and goes to the bathroom. 

When she comes back, JJ still isn’t awake so she silently makes her way to the kitchen and starts up some pancakes. One of the various perks of growing up with parents that run a restaurant is that Kie knows her way around a kitchen. Even a kitchen as small and sad as the Chateau’s. 

She’s almost used up all the batter by the time JJ gets up. She hears the springs under the bed creak slightly as he gets up and the rustling of fabric as he throws on his shirt, but she doesn’t turn around, giving him time to come to her. 

“Damn, first I get to sleep with you and now you’re making me breakfast? I could get used to this,” JJ teases, the effect slightly lost (or made hotter, you decide) by his voice made groggy from sleep. As ridiculous as that comment was, Kie’s glad to see JJ back to his usual self.

“And good morning to you too,” She throws a hand towel at him, “This means you’re on dishes, dumbass.”

They banter back and forth, and do not talk about last night any further. So what if her and her friend cried on each other? So what if they held each other through the night? So what if they’ve spent literally the past 24 hours together with no one else? So what if the aforementioned friend is very attractive? So what? 

Pope comes by a few minutes later and manages to get a few pancakes before JJ and Kie inhale them all. He apologizes for leaving so abruptly, and they immediately forgive him. So they eat and JJ does the dishes and they pretend like everything’s normal. 

And in a way, it is. It’s been two weeks since That Day. Two weeks to prepare themselves for what would happen next and to move on. Kie honestly thinks it hurt more back when she had just found out that they had lost John B and Sarah, in the tent that was thrashing from the wind and emotions that couldn’t be held in. She suspects it’s the same for the boys and that’s why they can return to a semblance of normal a day after Shoupe’s news. 

-

So they go back to their new normal. All three of them hanging out in the morning and then just JJ and Kie in the afternoon. John B and Sarah are no longer a taboo topic, they talk about them, rehashing stories of dumb shit that John B had done and Kie even contributes some stories of Sarah from her Kook year. 

One night, a few days later, JJ and Kie convince Heyward to let Pope out for the night and they go smoke at the cove. Pope smoking is something that Kie is definitely not used to, and she doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to it. But a lot of things have changed, so Kie doesn’t bring it up. 

Another change is that Kie and JJ become a lot more touchy. JJ’s always been pretty hands-on with anyone, at any time, so it’s not that different, but now Kie seeks it out, the casual touches that remind her she’s not alone. JJ catches on pretty much immediately and can somehow read her mind, throwing an arm over her shoulders when she’s telling a stupid story about Sarah or resting his legs in her lap as Pope tells them about the newest research that he’s reading. 

So there’s that. Kie’s starting to feel like the balance is shifting within their little group. Usually they’re all equally spaced from each other. But recently, Pope seems to be getting further and further away, and JJ, well JJ’s just right there to crack a joke, roll a blunt, or hold her hand whenever she needs him. She blames it on the fact that they’ve been spending literally every day, all day together, and spending increased time with someone just means that your feelings are going to increase. Right?

They’re smoking around the fire when JJ starts talking about going down to Mexico. At first, Kie doesn’t even realize it, she’s warm and cozy, resting on JJ’s shoulder with the warmth from the fire soaking into her bones. 

“I mean, on a clear day, like-like a perfect day, I could probably do it.” And it clicks. JJ’s talking about leaving. Alone. 

Kie pulls out of his embrace to look him in the eye. “You’re just gonna leave?”

“Yeah? Well, no, I mean, it’s just an idea,” He says sheepishly. 

“No. No, you can’t do that.”

“I mean, it’s not like I’m going tomorrow-”

“No. You’re not going at all.”

“Kie-”

“JJ, no! You can’t just leave us like that, I’m not losing another friend-”

“It’s not like I’d be dead-”

“Fuck you, JJ, I need you here, okay?” She feels something shift in her gut and looks at Pope, who she might have forgotten was there until now. “Pope needs you here too, right Pope?”

Pope looks at them like a scientist studying an experiment and just discovered something he didn’t want to discover. “Do whatever the hell you want, man.”

He stands up and practically storms off. 

“Pope!” Kie yells after him, with no response. She turns back to JJ, putting her hands around the base of his neck, so he looks right into her eyes. “You don’t get to leave like that, after everything we’ve been through, okay?”

He holds her gaze for a second and drops his head. “Okay.”

She tilts his head back up, and his eyes flick over her face, pausing at her lips and then looking up at her through his lashes, and fuck, if that doesn’t make Kie feel something. She then hugs him, not sure what she’d do if he kept looking at her like that. No Pogues macking on other Pogues.

“Promise?” She murmurs over his shoulder. 

“Yeah, Kie, I promise.”

-

(When Kiara goes home, she certainly does not think about how she almost kissed her best friend. She does not think about how that would mean she’s kissed all her guy friends. She does not think about how she doesn’t think she’d mind if JJ had kissed her. She does not think about it.)

-

Pope doesn’t show up to the Chateau the next day. Or the next day. Kie’s kinda worried since he had stormed off the other night and, despite the fact that Kie has sent him multiple texts, he still has responded, either because he’s ignoring her or there’s just shitty island service. 

“He’s Pope, he’ll come around, he always does,” JJ says when Kie asks him about it, “He’s probably just working through some shit. He’ll be back.”

“But he stormed off and I just wanna make sure we’re all okay and-”

“Are you being serious right now?” JJ interrupts, and Kie’s confused. 

“Yeah- what? Don’t look at me like I’m an idiot.” Kie’s even more confused because now JJ is looking at her like a) she’s being stupid, and b) he knows something that she doesn’t.

“Ohhhh my god Kie-”

“What?!”

“The dude’s in love with you!” JJ says, and Kie didn’t think it was possible, but now she’s even more confused. 

“What does that have to do with anything?”

JJ gives her an exasperated look. “What were we doing before Pope left?”

“Arguing about you ditching us for Mexico. But what does-”

JJ buzzes like a game show wrong answer button, “Wrong. I had my arm around you and you were getting all snuggly-”

“It was cold!”

“Yeah, Kie, it was, but Pope doesn’t care because we’re getting all close-”

“Is platonic affection outlawed now?” She interrupts.

“Jesus, Kie, no, but even though I know it’s platonic and you know it’s platonic, that doesn’t mean Pope knows it’s platonic,” JJ finishes. 

“But we talked and he said he was fine,” Kie starts again, “We’re just friends-”

“That does not change the fact that he’s in love with you! He needs time to get over that,” JJ says.

“It’s been two weeks though,” Kie says, exasperated, “Shouldn’t that be enough time?”

JJ looks pained and Kiara feels like she’s missing something. “No, that’s not enough time, Kie, believe me.” 

Kie’s done with this conversation, and a little pissed off. Fucking men. What does JJ know about love? And since when has he ever been in love with anyone? 

“I’m gonna go talk to Pope,” She decides and turns to leave. 

“That’s not a good idea,” JJ calls after her. 

“Fuck that,” she mumbles under her breath and leaves. She would slam the door if that didn’t mean that it would fall off of it’s hinges. 

-

Once she’s in her car, she calms down a bit. JJ could be wrong, she reasons, maybe Pope’s dad has just been busy and Pope has needed to make more deliveries that usual. Yeah, that’s probably it. No feelings to be dealt with. 

-

When she gets to Heyward’s, Pope isn’t there. He’s out making deliveries and Kie wishes JJ was there so she could tell him ‘told you so’. Kie waits on the dock for him to get back, but after a while she heads into the store to see if there’s anything she can help with. Pope’s mom is delighted and puts her on inventory. 

Numbers will never relax her the way they do for Pope, but something about the monotony of it calms her. At least it does until Pope walks in, back from a delivery.

“Mom! They got back to me about the scholarship for-” He stops short when he sees Kie and the smile visibly falls off his face. “What are you doing here?”

“Pope! Don’t be rude,” His mom chastises, “She came by to talk to you.”

“Well, I’m working.” He grumbles, and grabs a bag to take back out to the boat. 

His mom stops him, crossing her arms over her chest. “And as your mother and boss, I say it’s time for a break. Kiara, sweetheart, thank you for your help with inventory, we appreciate it.”

“Of course Mrs. Heyward, any time,” Kie says as she walks out the door behind an angry Pope. 

When they’re far enough down the dock, Kie starts. “Ok, what’s up with you lately? First you ditch us at the cove, then you ignore us for two days, and now this?” She gestures between them. “What’s going on?”

“I’ve been working.” He says coldly. 

“Bullshit, Pope. It takes two seconds to answer a text.” Kie prods, knowing there’s more to it, but also hoping it’s not what JJ thinks it is. 

“Bad service.” He replies, blatantly lying. Earlier, Kie had asked his mom if they had noticed anything off with the service, and she had told her that it had actually been working better than normal recently. 

“No, Pogues don’t lie to Pogues, what’s actually going on?”

“Oh, so now you want to get all high and mighty with the Pogue rules bullshit?” Pope bursts and laughs hollowly.

“What are you talking about?”

“No Pogue on Pogue macking!” Pope practically shouts.

“Are you high right now? What does that have to do with anything?” She asks, starting to get pissed off.

“You and JJ-”

“No,” She interjects, “JJ and I haven’t kissed!”

“Yet.” Pope adds darkly. 

“Fuck you, Pope, JJ and I are friends.” Kie is officially pissed off now.

“Friends don’t look at friends like that.” Pope says, and Kie hazily remembers the look he gave them before he stormed off at the cove. (She also remembers that she and JJ almost kissed after he had left, but right now really isn’t the time for that.)

“Like what?” Kie asks.

“Like you’re in love with him or something!” Pope shouts and Kie’s shocked into silence. “Because you’re constantly wrapped around him or holding hands or some shit, and he just lets you, and it’s one thing to do that with all your friends, but you didn’t do that with John B and you definitely don’t do it with me. And the way you look at him, Jesus Christ Kie, I’m surprised he hasn’t made a move, it’s so fucking obvious you like him, the entire god damn island can see it!”

“Oh my god, JJ was right.” Kie owes him an apology.

Pope rolls his eyes, “Oh yeah, just tell me more about JJ, why don’t you?”

“Shut the fuck up Pope,” Kie forces out, thoughts running through her brain like wildfire. Pope looks kinda stunned. “JJ thought that you were gonna be upset because you were still in love with me and, yeah, we have been kinda touchy lately, because we’ve been hanging out a lot since you just ditch us any time you can and John B is fucking dead. So sue me for getting closer with the friend that stayed. And I thought he was wrong, and I was honestly worried about you so I came over here to make sure everything was okay, just to see that you’ve been concocting and seeing shit that isn’t there just because you’re jealous or something.” Kie’s out of breath by the time she finishes and notices that a few tears have slipped down her cheek. 

“Just because you don’t want to acknowledge it doesn’t mean it’s not there.” Pope snarks and Kie’s done. 

“I’m not in love with JJ. Fuck you, Pope.” She says, and leaves. 

-

She gets in her car and manages to drive for about 5 minutes until she has to stop on the side of the road because she’s crying so hard. She doesn’t know where to go, she wants to go to the Chateau and see JJ, but they had fought earlier and she’s not about to go dump her problems on him. She’s so frustrated, so far today she’s fought with both JJ and Pope, and she doesn’t even know how to deal with the fact that Pope thinks she’s in love with JJ.

And it’s not like what Pope thought he saw was impossible, Kie and JJ are really close. But she’s not in love with him. I mean, sure, he’s nice to look at, Kiara’s never gonna complain when he takes off his shirt, but there’s more to love than just looks, you have to like their personality too. And Kiara does like JJ’s personality, it’s why she’s still friends with him: he’s hotheaded and impulsive and can never sit still, but he’s also insanely loyal and hilarious and passionate and can always make her smile and can practically read her mind sometimes and-

Oh.

Oh. 

Oh, shit. 

(So maybe, just maybe, what Pope said might have been at least a little bit true.) 

-

It takes Kie a few minutes to accept the fact that, oh, huh, she might actually have feelings for JJ (Which does explain the feeling that she sometimes gets around him that she’s never gotten with the other boys and how she way okay with them almost kissing and a lot of things actually), and then she has to deal with the ‘what now.’

Because when she left him earlier that day, they had been fighting, and while it wasn’t a big fight, Kie still feels bad about it. She also doesn’t know what she’s gonna do about her feelings, those inconvenient fuckers. What does one do when they figure out that they’re in love with someone?

Logically, Kie knows that she should probably tell him, so he can reject her and she can get started on moving on. She’s reminded of Pope’s words, ‘I’m surprised he hasn’t made a move, it’s so fucking obvious.’ Since when has JJ ever shone any self-restraint? He says and does whatever he wants, and if he liked Kie the way she likes him, he would have made a move already. He’s always been good at knowing when people like him, he goes home with a new girl after every party, not that Kie noticed (and then Kie looks back and almost has to laugh at the absurdity of it, she absolutely noticed).

So there’s also that. Kie has never seen JJ with the same girl twice, and if she ever told him how she felt, and on the off chance that he actually returned her feelings, there’s no guarantee that they would last together. And she’s not about to ruin her friendship with JJ or the dynamic of the Pogues just because some pesky feelings got in the way. 

There’s also the no Pogue on Pogue macking rule, and after her fight with Pope, that seals the deal. She’s not going to tell him how she feels. 

This decision makes Kie feel a lot better. Her head feels less like it’s about to explode and her thoughts are less muddled. Now she just needs to apologize to JJ and figure out what to do about Pope and everything will be fine. 

She puts her car in gear and is about to pull back onto the street when she spots two motorbikes in her side mirror. Rafe and Barry. Just when her day can’t get any worse. 

As they whiz towards her, Rafe gets dangerously close to her car and yells, “We’re boutta get your boy!” 

Oh, fuck. JJ and the money he stole from Barry. The money he spent on the hot tub and lights and other random shit. The money that is now going to be the reason why JJ gets beat up by two psychopaths. A free piece of advice that Kiara would love to share with the world: don’t fucking steal from drug dealers, kids. 

Kie’s reminded of when they got jumped at the boat yard, and how she was essentially useless. But that’s not the case anyone: Kie now knows how to punch decently well, and while she hasn’t ever put those punching skills to the test in an actual fight, she will soon. 

She pulls onto the street and guns it for the Chateau. On the way, she calls Pope, even though she’s still mad at him and he’s probably still mad at her. He doesn’t pick up, but Kie leaves him a voicemail which consists of her disjointed yelling into the phone about Rafe and Barry and JJ, and she really hopes that it makes sense. She also really hopes that Pope puts aside his anger and listens to it. Just for good measure, she calls and leaves a second voicemail, hoping that the notification will motivate Pope to listen to it. Only time will tell. 

-

Rafe and Barry beat her to the house by a few minutes and when she pulls in she can hear shouts from inside. She should go about this logically, she thinks, have some kind of plan of attack. She has the element of surprise on her side-

She then hears JJ scream and all logic gets thrown out the window. Kie sprints inside. 

The scene inside is worse that she could have guessed. The place is a mess, almost rivaling when the square groupers came for John B, with stuff strewn all over the floor. JJ, shit, JJ is pinned to the floor, Rafe kneeling over his torso and beating on his face and chest, while Barry holds his arms down and yells about getting his money back. 

None of them see her or hear her, so Kie grabs a beer bottle that is somehow still standing, wields it like a baseball bat, crosses the room, and wacks Rafe in the back of the head with it. 

Rafe grunts as his head is forced to the side, and the bottle shatters. All the boys turn toward her, surprised. Her eyes meet JJ’s and she’s surprised to see actual fear in them.

“You little bitch,” Rafe seethes, “You’re gonna regret that.” 

“Kie, no, no, no, you gotta leave,” JJ begs from his position on the floor, but Kie isn’t going to leave him to deal with this on his own. 

“I’d listen to your boy Kiara,” Rafe slowly climbs off JJ, standing up to his full height. He steps towards her and she steps away until her back is against the kitchen wall.

Behind him, Barry has propped up JJ. “Now you get to watch country club over here mess up your bitch. Unless, unless you tell me where my money is.” Barry leers at JJ. 

“You picked the wrong time to play hero,” Rafe says and steps even further into Kie’s space. He opens his mouth to say more, but Kie’s decided she’s heard enough of this shit and fucking decks him in the nose, making sure her thumb is outside her fingers. 

There's a loud crack and then blood starts pouring from Rafe’s nose. He yelps and pulls away from her, his hands trying to stop the bleeding. 

Everything stops for a second. 

JJ’s look of terror turns into one of some sort of pride, because, hell yeah, he taught Kie how to punch. Barry looks shocked, like that was the last thing he had expected from Kie, and Rafe can’t even meet her eyes, too busy trying to stop the bleeding with his ugly-ass polo shirt. Kie looks down at her knuckles, which slightly sting of pain, and is surprised to find them bloody. Not her blood, she thinks with a jolt.

“I’m not anyone’s bitch,” Kie says into the stunned silence, and suddenly everything resumes. 

“Oh shit,” Barry curses and scrambles up. He takes a step towards Rafe and Kie, but JJ grabs his foot, tripping him, and Barry’s suddenly on the floor. 

Kie takes this opportunity to shove Rafe towards the door. He regains some of his bearings and attempts to push back, but Kie punches him again, this time higher on his face, near his eye. This confuses him enough to shove him out the door and he tumbles down the, like, four steps and lays in a heap. 

On the other side of the room, both JJ and Barry have gotten back to their feet and are fighting it out, with Barry yelling about his money and JJ yelling that he doesn’t have it. Before Kie can intervene, JJ smashes a plate on Barry’s head and Barry punches JJ. 

Kie runs over, grabs Barry by his shirt collar, and uses her momentum to drag him away from JJ. Barry throws an arm at her, which connects with her cheekbone, and Kie shouts, immediately knowing it’s going to leave a bruise. JJ then uses his bodyweight to shove Barry away from her, but before he can push him any further, Barry punches JJ in the face and JJ falls to the ground. 

“JJ!” Kie yells but before she can kneel down to check on him, Barry grabs her shoulder. He’s yelling about the money, but Kie doesn’t process any of it. Instead her brain decides to remind her about when JJ had just stolen the money, and in response to John B asking what they were gonna do when Barry came around looking for it JJ had said, We punch him in the throat. 

So Kie does just that. 

She punches him in the throat, and when he bends over coughing, she shoves him towards the door. Barry almost trips trying to get down the steps, then grabs Rafe, who was rolling around holding his nose, and they run. 

“Leave us the hell alone!” Kie shouts after them from the doorway as they mount their bikes. When they’re for sure gone, the realization of what just happened hits her, and she slides to the ground. 

“Kie!” JJ yells, mistaking her fall for something worse than shock, and immediately jerks her out of her thoughts. She looks at him, taking in the blood and the bruises and the split lip, and realizes that she can’t fall apart just yet.

“JJ.” She breathes and crawls over to where JJ is now sitting up.

“Are you okay?” He asks, bringing his hand up to lightly trace her cheek that Barry punched, and Kie’s heart aches. Classic JJ, always caring about everyone else before himself. He’s in much worse shape than she is, yet he still wants to make sure she’s okay.

“Yeah, yeah, JJ, I’m okay,” She gestures at him, “Are you?”

“High pain tolerance.” He shrugs, breaking eye contact.

“Jesus JJ, just because you can survive something doesn’t mean you should,” Kie tells him gently. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

She helps him up and they make their way to the bathroom. JJ sits on the closed toilet as Kie gets the first aid kit out from under the sink. 

Usually John B was the Pogue’s go-to for first aid. He’d been patching up JJ since before the Pogues were even a thing and knew how to address most cuts and scrapes and bruises. But John B isn’t here anymore, so it’s on Kie now to help JJ. 

Kie doesn’t what to think: there are no worrisome bumps on his head, but he has a bruise on his cheekbone that almost matches Kie’s, a split lip, a few cuts from the beer bottle that Kie had shattered on Rafe’s head, and, when he takes off his shirt, he has bruises all over his chest and ribs area.

There’s not much she can do about the bruises right now, so she gives him some gauze to clean his lip (because after her realization from like 20 minutes ago, Kie is not getting anywhere close to those lips anytime soon, absolutely not), and focuses on the cuts. She kneels between his legs so they’re practically eye to eye and gets started. 

This time around, JJ is a sharp contrast to how he was when Kie cleaned him up after Shoupe’s news. He makes jokes, quips, and comments as she works on pulling out the glass, cleaning the cut, and putting on bandaids. They don’t make her laugh out loud, she’s too focused on keeping her hands steady, but they do make her smile. 

JJ honestly does have a really high pain tolerance because he doesn’t even wince as Kie removes a sizable piece of glass from his forearm and just makes another joke. It simultaneously amazes and saddens Kie.

After a while, there’s only one piece left. Somehow, Kie honestly doesn’t know how it happened, a piece had ended up in JJ’s chest. It’s embedded near his collarbone and looks so painful that Kie winces just looking at it. 

“I’m sorry about earlier,” She says as she pulls out the piece as steadily as she can. JJ sucks in breath. “Shit, sorry.”

JJ breathes out, “You’re fine. And, uh, don’t worry about earlier, you were just worried about Pope and I was being a shitty friend. How’d it go with him anyway?”

“Pretty bad,” Kie admits as she reaches for the antiseptic. “We kinda yelled at each.”

JJ snorts, “Really?”

“Yeah, it turns out you were kinda right and he was mad about us being all touchy and,” She considers what she’s about to say because she’s certainly not about to tell JJ that they fought because Pope thinks that she’s in love with him, so she aims for a vague explanation, “He, uh, just interpreted it wrong.”

“So, just to clarify, things are not chill with Pope?”

Kie sighs as she cleans the cut, “Ugh, I don’t know. I need to apologize to him, and hopefully then we’ll be chill.”

“Oh, well, I’m sorry.” JJ says sincerely. If only he knew what Kie and Pope had really fought about.

“It’s not your fault, JJ,” Kie says softly as she puts a bandaid on the cut, even though it technically is indirectly JJ’s fault. But he doesn’t need to know that. “All done.”

Kie steps out from in between his legs as he looks down to examine her handywork. Earlier, she had told herself that her realization of feelings for JJ would absolutely not impact their friendship. But standing here in front of JJ now, she wants. She wants and wants and wants. Even covered in bruises and cuts, he’s attractive (He’s also not wearing a shirt, so, you know, there is that). 

“Thanks Doc,” He smiles cheekily. The smile, however, is quickly replaced by a frown. “Kie, your hand!”

Her hand? Her hand. 

“Oh.” She stares at her hand as she extends her fingers. The skin on her knuckles has split, and is all red and raw. There are blood stains on her fingers as well, that she’s pretty sure is Rafe’s. She had forgotten about it earlier, she had been too busy making sure that JJ was okay. 

JJ gently grabs her wrist and pats the counter beside her. “All right, up ya go. The patient has now become the doctor, it’s your turn.”

Kie hops up on the counter and JJ begins to clean and bandage her knuckles. He’s unusually gentle, a stark contrast from his usual brash personality. Kie doesn’t think she’s ever seen him so soft, he holds her hand as if he’s scared he’ll break her. 

This time around, JJ doesn’t make jokes to lighten the mood. His eyebrows scrunch together slightly and he keeps running his tongue over his split lip in his concentration. It distracts Kie from the stinging pain in her knuckles as she studies his face. 

So this is who she has feelings for, huh? Her eyes roam his face, looking at his features in a new light. She allows herself to admire him from this close distance and promises herself that she’ll pack up these feelings when JJ finishes. But for right now? She’ll let herself enjoy them and just hope that JJ can’t hear her heart beating so obnoxiously loud. 

“All done,” JJ murmurs and meets her eyes. Kie feels a shock run down her spine. Time to lock up those feelings, she thinks miserably. 

“Thanks JJ, I-” Her words die in her throat as JJ brings her hand up to his mouth and kisses her bandaged knuckles lightly. 

Goddamn. 

Yeah, so these feelings that Kie was gonna put away? They’re currently running rampant all over her heart. 

They were already really close to each other, but now Kie is aware of every single inch between them. (Not that there are very many.)

Her eyes involuntarily flick towards JJ’s lips, which he wets with his tongue, and Kie feels a tug in her stomach. She flicks her eyes back up to his, just to see that his gaze is also looking at her mouth. She raises her bandaged hand to gently cup his cheek, and his eyes flick back up to meet hers, and Kie’s heart flutters. She closes her eyes and they slowly lean in. Kie can feel JJ’s warm breath on her mouth and is about to close the distance-

“Hey guys!” Pope’s voice carries into the bathroom from the front door, and JJ springs away from Kie’s position on the counter like she burned him. “Please tell you two are still alive? Kie, I got your voicemail and I’m sorry I’m so late-”

Kie recovers first, JJ still looking at her as if she just teleported onto the counter a second ago, “We’re in the bathroom, Pope.”

As Pope runs over, Kie and JJ just stare at each other. They almost kissed?! Kie’s emotions were already working overtime with everything that has happened today, and now this? Anything more and Kie’s brain is going to explode. 

Pope skids into the doorway of the bathroom, holding a package, and starts talking really fast. “Hey guys, I’m so sorry about ditching you, and Kie I’m really sorry about earlier, and I’m sorry about not being here for the fight. Are you guys okay?” 

“Yeah, we’re fine, dude-” JJ says and Pope immediately starts again, obviously excited to get to the point. 

“Ok good, anyway, there was a package at the front door, and,” Pope pauses, looking up at them. 

“And?” Kie echos. 

“It’s from John B. John B’s alive.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kie distinctly feels like she's missing something.
> 
> (aka JJ teaches Kie self-defense and Kie attempts to deal with her feelings)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY GOD YALL
> 
> i'm gonna be honest, when i posted the first part i didn't really have any plans to write a second part, BUT THEN yall were just so fucking supportive and uplifting in the comments and so i turned around and started part two! you asked and you shall receive :)

Kie is fucking exshuasted. 

Within the past few hours Kie has fought with JJ, fought with Pope, realized that she has feelings for JJ, got into an actual fight with Rafe and Barry, almost kissed JJ for the second time,  _ and _ found out that John B and Sarah are alive. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster, to say the least. 

What Kie really, really wants is to go home, nap for at  _ least _ 24 hours, and then have a good, long think about the hurricane her life has become.

But what Kie wants is not what she gets. 

\- 

After Pope had told them the news and showed them the package, a burner phone and a Nassua keychain, the remaining Pogues practically explode. 

“The bastard made it!”

“The gold is in Nassau!”

“We’re gonna go full Kook, baby!”

Kie feels like she’s flying as they scream and laugh and collide in hugs. The boys spin her around and she kisses both of them on the cheek. The house shakes as it tries to contain their energy. 

JJ separates from them and just starts to spin, his arms strewn out around him, in the small space that is the living room. Kie laughs, and she and Pope join him. The living room really wasn’t built for three teenagers to be acting like 5 year olds, so they crash into the walls and crash into each and eventually crash into the floor. 

They all fall down, dizzy and breathing hard, with smiles that are impossible to stop.

Kie’s heart beats to the sound of  _ They’re alive. They’re alive. They’re alive.  _

Everything is golden and good and Kie hopes it stays this way forever. 

-

They call John B. The burner phone is programmed with one number, and one number only. At first, Kie’s afraid that it’s a horrible prank, but as soon as she hears his voice over the speaker, she almost cries in relief. 

Him and Sarah are in Nassau, safe enough and working on getting the gold. They’re staying in a hotel under fake names and Sarah’s convinced that they’ll be able to get the gold within a month. They don’t talk for that long, each minute on the burner phone costs a dollar, but Kie still makes him promise to check in every day. 

After the call, Kie finds herself even more exhausted, which she honestly didn’t think was possible, and passes out on the couch as JJ and Pope talk about John B, Nassau, and the gold. 

-

When she wakes up, it’s dark and she finds that, in her sleep, someone had laid a blanket over her. Pope and JJ are talking quietly in the kitchen, and Kie just lets their words wash over her as she slowly comes back into consciousness. She doesn’t want to wake up, her head already hurts, and her bruised cheek throbs, and she’s still so tired, so she doesn’t move from her spot on the couch. 

Kie’s content just to let the boy’s voices be background noise, but then she hears her name. 

“You actually fought with Kie because you think she’s in love with me?” It’s JJ. He chuckles quietly. “For the smartest person I know, that’s pretty dumb, dude.”

“Okay, yeah her reaction made that pretty clear, thanks,” Pope replies lightheartedly. “But in my defense, you two have been all over each other.”

The chair shuffles as JJ gets up, and Kie randomly hopes that one of them cleaned up the shattered glass left on the floor from the fight earlier. 

“Pope, man, you gotta understand, you’re never around. We miss you, bro.”

“I know! And I miss you guys too, but I gotta work on getting another scholarship, you know how important that is.”

“Yeah, of course, just don’t forget about us.”

“I could never, you two would let me go for like two days, then come knocking at my door with some random excuse.”

JJ snorts. “Guilty as charged.”

There’s a pause and Kie considers yawning exaggeratedly to show she’s awake, but then JJ starts:

“Okay, but you actually, like for real, thought that Kie was in love with me?”

This time Pope snorts in laughter. “Man, I don’t even know anymore. Like the way you two look at each other, I definitely thought there was something there.”

“Huh.” The chair scrapes against the ground as JJ sits down again. 

Kie feels like she should probably interrupt and show that she’s awake and eavesdropping, or something, but she doesn’t. She’s heard all of Pope’s side of this conversation (although they were both much less calm than Pope and JJ are now), and she’s a little interested to hear JJ’s side of it. 

“You sure there’s nothing?”

“No Pogue on Pogue macking. Thems the rules.”

“Rules have literally never stopped you, dude.”

JJ sighs, “Whatever, we’re friends, it’s fine.”

Pope hums thoughtfully.

“Doesn’t this bother you, man? Like weren’t you in love with Kie like two weeks ago?” JJ redirects.

“I don’t think I really was though,” Pope says, and Kie can hear JJ’s fingers tapping along the table. “I think I loved the idea of her. And I had just lost my scholarship, and I don’t know man, I was a mess. I think I needed something to make up for it, and she was there, and I know how shitty that is, but I literally realized this immediately after we argued.”

“Yeah man, that’s kinda shitty, but you should definitely talk to her about that,” JJ claps Pope on the shoulder.

“Yeah, probably. We’re cool though?”

“Hell yeah, man, we’re cool.” JJ says, and Kie hears them do the Pogue handshake. 

The conversation ends, and Kie exaggeratedly yawns and throws her arms up to stretch.

“Hey, look, Sleeping Beauty finally woke up,” JJ says, and Kie flips him off, her arms still stretched over her head. “Do you need to get home?”

“Probably,” Kie admits. It might be nice to sleep in her own bed and actually sleep now that she knows John B and Sarah are alive.

“The gold can wait till tomorrow,” Pope adds.

“C’mon, I’ll drive you,” JJ offers and grabs the keys to John B’s van. 

Ever since John B was thought to be dead, JJ refused to have anything to do with the van. He would live in his house, but Kie guessed that the van was just too much, too many potent memories of John B. But now that it's confirmed that John B’s 100% alive and not dead, Kie assumes that the suffocating memories don’t bother JJ anymore. 

-

JJ drives her home and they spend most of the drive in silence, Kie resting her head on the window and JJ humming random upbeat songs. When they get to her house, Kie just sits for a moment. She doesn’t want to get out quite yet. 

JJ turns to look at her, “You good?”

“Yeah,” She sighs and turns towards him, “Yeah, just a long day.”

“You can say that again,” JJ chuckles, then becomes serious. “Hey, so about earlier…”

“Which part?” Kie asks, because honestly this day feels like it’s spanned years. 

“The bathroom.” JJ ducks his head and Kie’s stomach drops. She would literally talk about any other part of the day than this. Her feelings for JJ are too new and delicate, and Kie just really needs some time to think.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I, uh,” He clears his throat, “I just wanted to make sure that we’re good and I’m sorry if I-”

“JJ,” Kie says and he looks up at her. “Nothing happened anyway, we’re fine.”

Technically, she’s not wrong. Almost kissing is not actually kissing, therefore nothing happened. (Kie decidedly does not think about what would’ve happened if Pope hadn’t interrupted them, no sir.)

JJ breaks eye contact and focuses on his hands tapping rhythms into the wheel, “Yeah, yeah, of course, just wanted to make sure.”

Kie unbuckles her seatbelt and climbs out of the car. 

“G’night, thanks for the ride.”

“Anytime.” JJ still doesn’t look up at her, and Kie distinctly feels like she’s missing something. 

Before she closes the door, she pauses. “You know they’re gonna be okay, right? John B and Sarah?”

JJ finally looks up at her and nods. Kie closes the door and walks to her house, still feeling like there’s something she’s missing. 

-

Kie’s finally clean and cozy in her bed, but she can’t fall asleep. Thanks multiple hour nap that seemed like a good idea at the time but actually fucked up her sleep schedule, really appreciate it.

So she thinks. 

She thinks about John B and Sarah. She’s insanely glad they’re alive, every happy feeling coursing through her at once.  _ They’re alive. They’re alive. They’re alive. _ Her best friend isn’t dead and is in the same place that the gold is. In the span of an hour Kie went from having the odds stacked against her to having all the odds in her favor. 

(Although at this point, Kie doesn’t really care about the gold all that much, she’s just thrilled her friends are alive.)

Oddly enough, she finds herself missing Sarah almost as much as she misses John B. She had handled their grief together, or so she thought. But now that she looks back on it, she realizes that she was mourning both Sarah and the potential their friendship held, after the boys had forced them to make up. 

Kie’s absolutely going to hold John B to his word and make sure he checks in with them every day. She’ll give him a set time to check in and if he doesn’t, she will personally fly down to the Bahamas and whoop his ass. Turns out learning to punch has multiple uses. 

Learning to punch. Kie also concludes that she wants JJ and Pope to teach her how to fight with more than just punches. Honestly, she’s not sure if either of them (Let’s be real, it’s mainly JJ teaching her) know anything other than using their fists and if they don’t, she’ll turn to YouTube. After today’s fight with Rafe and Barry, she wants to be able to defend herself as well as she can. 

It’s not like she’s completely helpless anymore, she defended herself pretty well today, but she just can’t get the image of JJ on the floor out of her head. JJ’s one of the toughest people that Kie knows, and, feelings or not, it hurt her to see him so beat up. It always does. 

In hindsight, it really shouldn’t surprise Kie that she has feelings for JJ. There have always been certain flickers of her feeling for him here and there, but Kie had never acknowledged them until she was forced to. And now she’s not entirely sure what she’s going to do. 

The conclusion she came to in the car earlier, the one where she decided she’ll just bundle those feelings up until they go away, doesn’t seem to hold up. Blush prickles up her skin as she thinks about the almost kiss in the bathroom, and how badly she wishes it had happened. She still wants and wants and wants. 

Kie decides to let her feelings settle for a bit, get to know them, and then she’ll do something about them. Yup, it’s a plan. 

She honestly feels a little better about it after the conversation she overheard between Pope and JJ. She feels kinda bad about eavesdropping, but, honestly, what did they expect? She was literally in the room. The very last thing she wants to do is hurt Pope, and knowing that his feelings for her weren’t as real as he was convinced they were is almost reassuring. 

Jeez, when did her life become so complicated, she wonders, but before she can think about  _ that _ , she finally falls asleep. 

-

_ Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt.  _

Kie wakes up from a perfectly nice dream about saving baby sea turtles with her phone ringing, and she gropes along her side table for it. 

“Hello?” She croaks, still half asleep.

“Kie,” It’s JJ, and Kie doesn’t know how he’s awake this early until she glances at the clock and realizes it’s almost noon. “Get your ass down here, John B’s about to check in.”

That wakes her up more, “What?!”

“I mean, you’re the one that told him to check in every day,” JJ says and Kie literally jumps out of bed. 

“Yeah, but I didn’t think he’d actually listen the first time.” Kie admits as she rushes to get changed. 

“Okay, well he is, I guess living with the fact that you friends thought you were dead for three weeks kinda gives you a guilt complex.” JJ jokes and Kie laughs as she pulls on a shirt. “But seriously Kie, get your ass down here, we still gotta get Pope.”

-

Kie makes it down to the van two minutes later and they get to Pope in time for them all to be there for John B’s call. 

There isn’t much to report on, and as John B says, “It’s been like 12 hours, we’ve been in the hotel room the whole time,” but Kie is glad he’s making an effort. They keep the call short and sweet, and John B promises to check in tomorrow. The feeling of relief once again washes over Kie. Everything’s gonna be okay, she promises herself. 

As they drive to the Chateau, Kie brings up her idea of learning more self-defense. 

Surprisingly, JJ doesn’t protest like he did last time. Instead he nods, “Yeah okay, just in case Barry and Rafe come back.”

“Next time I’ll be there, so hopefully it won’t be as bad though,” Pope adds. He probably feels bad about both JJ and Kie coming out of it with bruises, and he wasn’t there to stop it. Kie knows the feeling. 

“Hopefully there won’t be a next time,” Kie says as they park in front of the Chateau. “But just in case-”

JJ hops out of the car, “Better safe than sorry.”

And so it’s settled. 

-

They don’t start immediately, instead focusing on cleaning up the Chateau. It’s still a wreck from the fight yesterday (Kie honestly doesn’t believe it was yesterday, too much has happened since then), so they clean.

Between the three of them it’s pretty fast work, and because JJ and Pope swept up the glass last night, so it only takes them a few hours. After they’re done, JJ has wandered off somewhere, and Kie finds herself on the porch with Pope. 

They talk about nothing until Pope suddenly pauses. “Can we talk?”

“We are talking.”

“No, I mean, about us…” Pope looks at her sideways. This doesn’t surprise Kie. It’s not like she didn’t know this was coming, she did overhear his conversation with JJ last night.

“Yeah, sure,” Kie nods, “What’s up?”

“First I wanted to apologize for, like, everything. I’ve been kind of a dick lately, and I’m really sorry about yesterday, with yelling at you and abandoning you and I really shouldn’t have accused you of being in love with JJ, I think I was jealous that you guys were getting closer and I thought you guys might leave me behind.” Pope then takes a huge breath, like he’s glad he’s gotten in off his chest.

“It’s okay, Pope, and, seriously, don’t even worry about us leaving you behind. Pogues for life, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah, Pogues for life.” He pauses. “And Kie, uh, do you remember when I told you that I was in love with you?”

“Yeah,” Kie resists the urge to chuckle, “I remember.”

“So I don’t think I’m actually in love with you.” His head turns to her in alarm, “Not that I don’t love you, just in a very platonic way. Platonic love. Not romantic.”

Pope squirms for a second longer before Kie laughs, “I love you platonically too, Pope.”

“Ok, cool, so you don’t have to worry about that anymore, just in case you were.” Pope still doesn’t look calm, and seems like he’s stressed that he’s somehow offended Kie. Which he hasn’t.

“Ok,” Kie says, because, honestly, what else is she supposed to say? “Wait, Pope, when I was at the store and you came in, you were saying something about a scholarship?”

Pope loses his confused golden retriever look, immediately brightens, and launches into an explanation about the scholarships he’s applied for and what they’re all about. It’s honestly the closest Kie has felt to Pope in weeks, and she’s really glad to have him back in her life, simply as platonic friends. 

When JJ finds them on the porch later, they’ll be deep into a conversation about colleges and career paths. JJ smirks at her, like he knew what he was doing by wandering off, because of course he does. Kie just smiles and shakes her head and continues the conversation. 

-

The next morning, JJ starts to teach her self-defense. Pope had texted saying that he convinced his dad to let him hang out with them in the afternoons if he worked on his scholarship stuff in the mornings, and, besides, he wasn’t planning on getting in any fights soon. 

He’d be there by the time John B checked in, he said. 

So it’s just her and JJ, which Kie is fine with. Things have been slightly off since the stilted apology in John B’s van two nice ago, they’ve been a little less touchy-feely, but Kie doesn’t want to think about why, she just hopes that they’ll go back to normal soon. 

“So, uh, we don’t have a mat or anything so I set down a towel instead,” JJ stands in front of a towel awkwardly laid out on the dirt and leaves that surround the Chateau. Yeah, because that’ll really stop the ground from hurting so much, Kie thinks. 

JJ seems to sense her suspicions, “We probably won’t do anything on the ground anyway today, but,” He shrugs, “Just in case.”

Just in case, indeed. Kie thinks that should be the catchphrase of this whole endeavour:  _ Just in case.  _

“Whatever you say, Teach,” Kie walks to the side of the towel opposite from JJ. 

He snorts, “I’m definitely not qualified to be a teacher. Anyway, I was thinking-” 

“Uh-oh.” JJ flips her off like a reflex and Kie laughs.

“I was thinking,” He continues, “About that time at the party a long time ago, with that Touron guy?”

Kie nods, remembering, “The one who wouldn’t let me go?”

“Yeah, that asshole. Anyway, I figured I could teach you how to get out of a grip like that?”

He looks up at her and Kie’s actually really touched that he remembers. It had been so long ago that Kie herself had almost forgotten it, she’s surprised that JJ remembers, considering that he had been pretty drunk at the time. 

“Yeah, okay, that’d be great,” Kie smiles. 

“Okay, cool. Can I?” JJ gestures for her arm, and Kie nods, holding it out to him. He loosely grips her wrist. “So what are you gonna do now?”

Kie looks at him for a second. This seems too easy. She twists her arm, but JJ’s grip is strong even if it’s not tight on her wrist. He smirks as she continues to struggle. Okay, so maybe it’s harder than she thought. 

“You’re just stronger than me,” Kie protests. 

JJ rolls his eyes, “Well yeah, that’s the point of self-defense, right? Defending against people stronger than you?”

Kie stops struggling and smacks him with her free hand. “Okay, Mr. Wise One, what do I do?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” JJ gives her a cheeky grin, and this time Kie rolls her eyes. “You’re pulling against my fingers and trying to break my grip, but because I’m stronger you can’t get out, right? So find the weak spot.”

“The weak spot?” Kie asks in disbelief. 

“Yup,” JJ nods solemnly, like what he said makes actual sense and not like it’s something out of a video game or adventure movie. “Twist towards my thumb.”

“Okay…”

Kie twists her wrist against JJ thumb, which moves back so it doesn’t bend unnaturally, and suddenly she’s free of his hand. 

“That’s it?” Kie asks. That was all she needed to do in case anyone grabbed her? It seemed so easy.

“Pretty much,” JJ shrugs, “Sometimes you’ll have to step closer to the person to do it, depending on how they have you, so let's try that.”

Kie gives JJ her wrist and this time he grips it slightly differently. The angle doesn’t work to twist her hand against him from her position, so she has to step closer, and to twist against JJ’s thumb she has to push her arm away from her and towards him. 

And it works, but Kie’s now in JJ’s space, so close that she can feel the heat radiating off his body. If she stays here too long she’s going to do something stupid, like confess all her feelings for him or kiss him. It would be so easy, just tilt her head up and- 

Nope, we are not doing that today, she thinks, and immediately steps back. No need to make her life any more complicated than it already is. 

If JJ noticed her inner conflict, he makes no indication of it. Instead he just smiles, “There it is! Again?”

They practice that move for a while, and then JJ teaches her to get out of other kinds of grips until Pope arrives and it’s time to check in with John B. 

-

A new routine starts again, slightly changing from before they knew John B was alive. JJ and her hang out at the Chateau in the mornings, and usually JJ has a new self-defense move to teach her. Kie’s pretty sure that he doesn’t actually know half of them and that he googled them the night before because she’s literally never seen him use them. That thought slightly amuses her because JJ’s doing that for her, and it does make her feel a little bit better knowing that he’s learning some self-defense too. Just in case. 

In the afternoons, Pope comes over and they check in with John B. So far there hasn’t been any news, they’re still trying to figure out how to get into the storage facility where the gold is being stored without the facility notifying Ward or the rest of the Cameron family. It makes Kie worry, knowing they’re down there all alone, but at this point there's nothing she can do but trust in John B and Sarah. (Which really isn’t a problem, it’s the other people, the guards and workers and friends of Ward Cameron, that she doesn’t trust.)

After the check in, she and the boys just hang out. It varies from day to day: fishing, smoking, surfing, or hanging around town. It’s not too different from before, just Pope joins them in their afternoon adventures. 

And there’s the fact that her and JJ have become a lot less touchy. It could be because they’re joined by Pope now, a one person audience that thought they were in love with each other, and while he apologized for thinking that, it’s still true, at least on Kie’s side of it. So she’s become a little more self-conscious of actively seeking out JJ’s touch.

But it’s not like JJ’s throwing himself at her anyway, he seems to have pulled back too. Kie doesn’t know if it’s some kind of self-consciousness, like it is for her, or if it’s something else. Yet it doesn’t stop Kie from missing his casual touches. Logically, she knows why she misses it so much: she has feelings for him, it’s as simple as that. But it never is that simple.

Now that she’s recognized her feelings for him, she lets herself revel in them, just for a moment. Sometimes the sunset’s golden light will just make him glow, his hair turning to fire at a certain angle and his smile is electric. Or she’ll get to the Chateau just as he’s waking up, groggy and armed with some kind of quip to make her laugh. Or they’ll be surfing and JJ’s movements are so fluid as the muscles ripple under his skin. It’s the flash of mischievous eyes, a hidden smile, the curve of his back, his finger on a lighter. They all make her feel something, a tug in her gut and butterflies in her chest. 

She still doesn’t know what she’s going to do about it. 

-

Pope’s quest for a scholarship is going well, really well, and he breaks the news to them on a Wednesday night that there might be one in his grasp. 

“They want me to go into the city and do this workshop for a few days and see if I’m the right fit.” Pope explains, and Kie can tell that he can barely hold his excitement back. 

“That’s fucking amazing, man” JJ wraps Pope into a hug. Pope looks over his shoulder and pulls Kie into the now-group hug. JJ opens one arm and she ducks into their embrace.

“I’m so proud of you, Pope,” Kie whispers into his shoulder, “You really deserve it.” And he does. 

Pope gave up his scholarship, his one way ticket out of town, for them. He knew he was giving up his future that he had worked so hard for, but he still did it. When it first happened, Pope had said that he did it for nothing. But that’s not true, he did it for them and Kie’s never going to forget that. 

“I leave Friday morning,” Pope says after they pull out of the hug, “So I need you guys not to get me into any kind of trouble tomorrow.”

“Us? Trouble? Never,” JJ says with a shit-eating grin. Kie elbows him.

“We’ll do our best,” Kie compromises. 

“But no promises!”

-

They manage to not get Pope into trouble for all of Thursday. Contrary to popular Kook opinion, the Pogues don’t actively seek out trouble, trouble just so happens to find them. 

Anyway, they steer clear of any illegal activity for the day. Why just that day, Kie doesn’t know. They do illegal shit literally every day, with underage drinking and smoking, but Pope bans JJ from both of those activities for the day. JJ dramatically grumbles about it, so Pope lets him keep his juul. 

Heyward gives him the morning off from work and scholarship research (which he absolutely deserves because he literally has a scholarship within his grasp), so they get Pope for the whole day. They spend it doing classic Pogue things: surfing and fishing (with a short interruption for John B’s check in), and at the end of the day Kie convinces her dad to let them eat at The Wreck. 

Overall it’s a pretty chill day, filled with laughter and inside jokes and salt spray. It’s good, but Kie feels like something’s coming to an end. It’s silly, Pope’s going to be gone for three days, and she’ll see him by midday Monday, at the latest. She shakes off the feeling, and tries to focus on the movie they’re watching at the Chateau, all jumbled onto John B’s pull out couch. 

The movie ends and Pope still has to get home and pack, so they say their goodbyes. 

JJ goes first, engulfing Pope in a bear hug. “I’m gonna miss you, man,” He pulls back but keeps a hand on the back of his neck. 

“I’ll be back before you know it,” Pope smiles and JJ pats his back, then they untangle. 

Kie hugs him tightly, “You’re gonna kick ass over there.”

“Thanks, Kie.” He says fondly, squeezing her tighter for a second. When he pulls back, his eyes are slightly shiny, but Kie doesn’t mention it. 

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Pope says to both of them. JJ salutes and Kie waves, and Pope turns to leave and doesn’t look back.  _ See ya in three days. _

-

JJ and Kie hang out all of Friday. They surf and then smoke the afternoon away, JJ wanting to make up for doing nothing illegal the day before. 

“Gotta protect my rep, Kie,” JJ explains, and while that’s total bullshit, Kie’s not about to turn his offer down, so she indulges him. 

The next morning, Kie gets to the Chateau earlier than usual. JJ’s still asleep on the couch, so Kie lets herself in. She contemplates waking JJ up, but he looks so peaceful asleep that she decides against it. This is one of those moments where she lets herself admire him, the messy hair and loose limbs and the air of stillness that seems so unnatural around him. 

Kie drags her gaze away and sets her sights on the kitchen, and begins to make pancakes. They’re almost out of ingredients, Kie notices, they’ll have to go to the store later. 

JJ wakes up earlier than Kie would have expected, she’s still prepping the batter. 

“You’re here early,” He says with no judgement, just curiosity. When Kie turns to look at him, he’s wrapped in a blanket. 

“Pancakes?” Kie holds up the batter she’s currently mixing. 

JJ hums and comes to stand beside her, “You are actually the best person on the planet.”

“Oh really?” Kie asks, and JJ nods. “Why don’t you come help the best person in the world?” She hands him the mixing bowl. 

“I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

“Absolutely.”

So JJ helps. They banter back and forth the whole time, and Kie discovers that he’s unfairly good at flipping pancakes. As they work JJ loses the blanket and ends up shirtless. Kie definitely doesn’t mind, but she’s also glad to see the bruises from their fight with Rafe and Barry are almost gone. All that’s left of them is a yellowish-greenish tinge. Her bruise on her cheek faded within a week, and so did JJ’s split lip, but he had taken to wearing a shirt when surfing so Kie assumed the bruises on his chest and ribs were still visible. 

At one point JJ notices her staring, and she blushes ferociously, “Sorry, sorry.”

“S’okay, they look a lot better now,” He shrugs then smirks at her, “And who would ever give up the chance to check out my abs?”

“Only someone who’s already seen them a thousand times.” Kie says, and forces herself to look away. 

JJ gasps dramatically, “Kiara Cerrara, does that mean you have, in fact, checked out my abs a thousand times?”

“Oh shut up,” Kie smacks him lightly with a dish towel and mutters under her breath about how full of himself he is, which only makes JJ’s shit-eating grin grow. 

After breakfast they go surfing. Usually they would be doing some kind of self-defense lesson, but JJ got word that the waves were especially good on the south-facing beach, so they decide to break the routine for today. 

They get back just in time to check in with John B. And by just in time, they’re running up the drive at 12:59, hoping they don’t miss the call at 1. When they get there, the burner phone doesn’t have any missed calls or messages. 

1:00 rolls around a second later, and no calls from John B comes through. This isn’t the first time this has happened, sometimes John B and Sarah forget what time it is, so they have to call them. That’s all it is, they just forgot what time it is, but it still freaks Kie out, if only for a second. 

They wait for a few minutes, Kie’s unease growing with each minute that passes. 

“Should we call them?” JJ asks, and Kie’s glad to know she’s not alone in her worries. 

“Yeah,” She picks up the phone and calls the only number in the contact list.

It rings out. No answer. Shit. 

She looks up at JJ, who’s biting at his lip, “Let me try.”

Kie doesn’t think it’ll make a difference if the caller changes, but she hands the phone to JJ anyway. 

It rings out. Again. 

“Fuck,” Kie curses under her breath, “They’ve never missed a check in.”

“It’s probably fine, they lost track of time or something,” JJ reasons. 

“But why didn’t they hear the phone ringing? It’s kind of hard to ignore.” Kie counters. 

“Maybe they’re making out,” JJ suggests and Kie snorts, “I’m serious, dude, you know John B. He’s never gonna pass up a time to mack on Sarah.”

“If the reason they missed the call is because they’re making out, I will personally fly down to the Bahamas and kill them.” Kie threatens. Good-naturedly, of course. 

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” JJ pats her arm, “Let’s give ‘em another ten minutes.”

Fifteen minutes pass and still no call. Kie getting seriously stressed about it, she got up from her chair to pace the floor a few minutes ago and she feels as if she could wear a hole right into the ground. 

“Alright, I can’t take this anymore.” JJ says, suddenly standing up, “A watched pot never boils and a watched phone never rings. Let’s go.”

“Go?” Kie stops pacing, “Go where? The phone-”

“We’re just going outside, we’ll be able to hear it.” And with that, JJ grabs a towel and leaves. Kie stands for a second longer, staring at the phone. She flips it open and turns the volume all the way up. Just in case. 

She assumes that JJ is going outside to smoke, but it turns out he has other plans. 

Outside, JJ’s standing over the towel like he was the first day of their self-defense lessons, when he taught her to break someone’s grip. They never needed the towel, so JJ stopped putting it out after the first day, but Kie gets the feeling he has plans for it. 

“What are you-”

“I’m gonna teach you how to flip someone over,” JJ says, spreading his arms. “Imagine if someone goes in for a hug, but you’re like, absolutely not, so you flip them over!”

Kie bursts out laughing, her anxieties only slightly forgotten. “Is this supposed to distract me?”

“Definitely,” JJ gives her a cheeky grin, “C’mon.”

“You’re ridiculous.” Kie walks over to the towel-mat and JJ puts his arms on her shoulders.

“First things first, you want your hands on the inside,” JJ says and Kie puts her hands on his shoulders, but on the inside of his arms. “Then you’re gonna turn, step away, and pull them towards you.”

Kie looks at him blankly, “What?”

“Okay, I’m gonna do it to you,” He bites his lip, “If that’s okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Kie nods immediately. JJ switches their arms so he’s on the inside. 

“Ready?” JJ looks at her and Kie smiles and nods. He then proceeds to do the turn, step, and pull thing: He turns away from her, but her arms are still on his shoulders, so when he steps, she falls into him, and then he pulls on her arms, bends his legs, and suddenly Kie’s on his back. 

He stops the move here and lets go of her, and she slides off his back. 

“Holy shit,” She breathes. 

“Are you okay?” JJ looks instantly worried as he turns around to face her again. 

“That is so cool. Teach me how to do that.” Kie smiles, a little breathless. 

At first JJ looked a little shocked, but it’s quickly replaced by a grin, “Yes ma’am.”

They put their arms on each other’s shoulder, with Kie’s on the inside. JJ walks her through the steps, and after a few tries, she can get him onto her back. She laughs the whole time, it’s kinda weird, but Kie’s having fun. 

Then they go over how to actually get that person on the ground. However, there is a slight problem of them not having an actual mat. 

JJ stares at the towel, “Okay so maybe I didn’t think this through.”

“No way, really?” Kie says sarcastically. 

“Shut up, I’m being serious. I’m not gonna flip you into the ground if we don’t have a mat.”

“JJ, it’ll be fine.” 

“Nope,” He shakes his head, “I don’t wanna hurt you.”

Kie trusts JJ with her life and knows that he would never hurt her (Physically, at least. Emotionally is another story, but that’s not necessarily his fault). 

“Okay, fine.” Kie thinks for a minute. “Could we just do it on our knees? That way there’s less distance to fall.”

He shakes his head, “You have to get power from your legs, and that wouldn’t work if you're on your knees.”

“Okay, then, uh…” Kie’s honestly grasping at straws here. She just wants to keep doing this with JJ, being distracted and all. “Teach me how to flip someone over another way.”

“Like, horizontally?” He asks.

Kie nods, “Yeah, sure.”

“Well, it is lower impact,” JJ shrugs then gives her a wicked smile, “And I’m definitely an expert on it.”

“Gross, JJ!”

“Damn, you’ve got a dirty mind there, Kie. I mean that I’ve used this pretty often in fights, that’s all.” His grin doesn’t fade. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you use this move once,” Kie rolls her eyes as she sits down. 

“Then where would I have learned it?” JJ asks, batting his eyes innocently, and coming to sit besides her on the towel. 

Kie lightly shoves him, “Oh shut up and teach me already.”

JJ lays down. “Alright, so kneel over me and put your hands down next to my head,” He instructs. 

Kie follows his instructions, and yeah this is a weird position for friends, but Kie’s gotten used to packing her feelings for JJ into a box when they’ve done these self-defense lesson things so she can handle herself near him without spilling all her secrets. This time is no different. 

“Ready for a demonstration?” JJ asks and before Kie can finish nodding, one of his hands is on her shoulder, another on her wrist, his legs hook with hers, and suddenly she’s on her back, JJ smirking over her.  _ Damn _ . 

“Woah,” She breathes out. 

JJ’s wicked grin returns, “Told you I was an expert.”

So… this time might actually be a little different. Kie subconsciously reinforces the box her feelings are fighting to get out of.

“Yeah, no need to brag about it,” Kie says as JJ shimmies off of her. 

“Oh don’t hide it, you’re impressed,” JJ lays back down where he was originally. “C’mon I’ll teach you step by step.”

Kie straddles his waist and places her hands so they’re bracketing his head again, and JJ explains how to do it. 

“The key,” He says, “Is your ankle hooking around their ankle. Then you can use your legs, which is even more helpful if someone is pinning down your wrists.” 

Once he shows her the steps and flips her around, it’s Kie’s turn to try. 

“You’re sure this is okay?” JJ’s in the same position that she had been in and he’s not doing anything that would make her uncomfortable, but it warms her heart that he cares to make sure. For all his bravado, JJ’s one of the most caring people that Kie knows. 

“I’m good,” She reassures him and goes through the steps of flipping him over. 

The first time, she gets him onto his side and bursts out laughing. After another few tries, she gets it down, but she can’t stop laughing. It’s oddly fun, the swing of being under someone and then on top of them. 

Eventually she gets the hang of it, flipping JJ onto his back. She practices a few more times. Starting the same, JJ straddling her waist and his hands by her head. She grabs his wrists and hooks their ankles. She successfully flips him onto his back, but somehow she slips. 

Instead of ending relatively upright on her knees, Kie falls flat onto JJ. 

He groans slightly as Kie props herself onto her forearms, her body still flush with his and she can feel his body heat radiating through their clothes. “Sorry.”

“S’okay,” JJ breathes out and Kie realizes their faces are approximately two inches apart. Kie’s heart pounds against her chest, her feelings straining to get out. 

Kie pulls back slightly, but before she can get too far, JJ’s hand comes up and rests on her waist. 

She meets his eyes, sky blue and staring at her, and feels a tug in her gut. She gives in to her feelings. 

She leans down and kisses him. 

His lips are soft where they touch, and after a heart-stopping moment, JJ starts moving his lips against hers. He’s gentle with his movements, and his hand that was on her waist comes up to her shoulder.

So this is what kissing JJ is like. He’s sweet and certainly skilled and-

And then he’s pushing her away. 

“Kie, no, we-”

Kie immediately sits up. JJ looks pained.  _ He doesn’t like her like that _ . 

“Shit.” Kie could cry. 

JJ says something about no Pogue on Pogue macking, but Kie doesn’t really process it because she just realized that she’s literally sitting between his legs and is scrambling to get off. 

“I’m really sorry, uh,” She swallows to hide the lump in her throat, “I gotta go.”

JJ stares at her, looking like something’s wrong, and Kie’s pretty sure she just fucked up everything good in her life. 

She gets up and almost runs to her car. 

“Kie!” JJ shouts from behind her, but she doesn’t turn back. 

-

It’s honestly a miracle that she made it home, crying as hard as she was. Kie burrows herself in her bed, and cries. She cries because JJ doesn’t like her like that and she cries because she’s 99% sure that she just fucked up the Pogues and she cries because John B and Sarah still haven’t checked in. 

Fuck.

The thing is, whenever Kie had boy problems, she would go to the Pogues. John B gives pretty solid advice, Pope is impeccably logical, and JJ would threaten to kill any boy that hurt her. And now she can’t go to any of them: John B’s MIA, Pope’s at the scholarship workshop, and JJ  _ is _ her boy problems. 

Surprisingly, Kie gets the urge to talk to Sarah. She was always really good at giving advice during her Kook year (even if the girl never followed it herself), and Kie needs someone to tell her it’s going to be okay, or at least tell her how to make things okay again. 

But Kie can’t talk to Sarah because, like John B, Sarah’s MIA. 

So Kie sucks it up and watches sad Netflix rom-coms. 

-

She stays home for the rest of Saturday and a good amount of Sunday too. She plays ukulele, watches Netflix, and ignores her phone. Not that there’s much to ignore, JJ texted her once asking if she’s okay a few hours after she left yesterday and she didn’t respond. Yeah, she’s a shitty friend, sue her. 

Kie reasons that as much as getting rejected fucking sucks, she can at least try to move on now. She’ll just need a little time, and then her and JJ can go back to being the best of buds. It’s fine. It’s great. It’s life. 

But life doesn’t always go the way you expect it to because suddenly Pope’s calling her. She doesn’t pick up because JJ probably told him everything that happened and she really doesn’t need a lecture or something right now. 

Then he calls again. 

When she doesn’t pick up, she gets a flurry of messages. 

**from pope:**

_ KIE _

_ pick up jfc _

_ it’s about jj _

_ KIE PLS _

Yeah, Kie knows it’s about JJ, that’s why she’s not picking up. She’s about to put her phone on silent when another message comes through:

**from pope:**

_ KIE _

_ it’s his dad _

And with that Kie calls Pope back. 

“Hello?”

“Oh thank god, I only have like 5 minutes. JJ went home and something happened and you need to go get him.” Pope says quickly. “How could you have let him go?”

Pope’s words cut right to Kie’s heart. “I didn’t know he was going!”

“You two are attached at the hip, what gives?”

“We got into a fight,” Kie vaguely explains. 

“So make up already.” 

“It’s not that simple, Pope. I’m gonna go, but I don’t think he’ll want to see me.”

“Well, he needs you,” Pope snaps, and Kie stays silent. 

Then he understands that Kie’s sidestepping around something bigger. He sighs, “What’d you do?”

“Um, I, uh, I kinda kissed him?” Kie admits as she grabs her keys and heads to her car.

“Why is that a problem-oh shit. Did he reject you?” Pope’s voice crackles through her phone speaker, but his voice isn’t judgemental, it’s concerned. Concerned for Kie. 

“Yeah,” Kie whispers, “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“It’s okay, we’ve all been there,” Pope says, “Honestly I’m kind of surprised because I definitely thought he liked you.” He pauses. “But don’t worry about it, Kie, it’s JJ. He’s not gonna hold it against you.”

“Yeah, I hope so,” Kie says as she gets in her car. 

“Okay, I really gotta go and so do you because JJ sounded really bad when he called me, but call me later okay?” Pope says.

“Will do, bye Pope.” And the call ends. Kie feels like there was so much more that needed to be said, but right now JJ needs her help.

-

Kie parks in the same place that she had when they came to get the keys for The Phantom. She’s really, really scared. She’s seen what Luke has done to JJ, one of the toughest people that Kie knows, and if JJ sounded really bad on the phone with Pope, then this probably isn’t the safest place for her. But if there’s any way that Kie can help JJ, then she’s gonna do it. He taught her self-defense, she can do it. 

(She isn’t sure if she could defend herself and JJ, but she ignores that thought.)

The house seems silent as Kie gets out of her car. She walks around to JJ’s bedroom window, and peeks in on her tip-toes. He’s not there. Shit. 

She walks around to the front door and her hand hesitates above the door handle as she second-guesses her decisions. For JJ, she decides, and opens the door. It slightly squeaks as it opens, and Kie cringes. She walks as silently as possible into the house. 

First, she finds Luke Maybank in the kitchen. His figure almost scares Kie to death, until she realizes that he’s passed out on the kitchen table. She’s relieved, but she has to get JJ quickly: she doesn’t know how long Luke’s been unconscious. 

She finds him on the ground in the living room, and he’s not a pretty sight. The thing that gets Kie’s attention pretty much immediately is that his head is bleeding.

“Shit,” She whispers under her breath and crouches down beside his unconscious form. That could mean a concussion or something worse, Kie doesn’t know, she’s not a nurse. There’ll be time to inspect the rest of the damage later. 

It turns out JJ isn’t unconscious because he flinches away from her and makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat. 

“Hey, hey, JJ, it’s me. It’s Kie,” She whispers and restrains herself from patting his shoulder. Contact probably wouldn’t be ideal right now. 

His eyes open a little wider and some recognition must passthrough his brain because he slightly nods, “Kie?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna get you out of here, okay?” She reassures him. 

“Aren’t you a little short to be a stormtrooper?” JJ quotes at her, mumbling through his words. That has to be a good sign though, making a joke.

“Very funny. Now, can you stand?” Kie asks. JJ shakes his head and closes his eyes.

“JJ?”

He doesn’t respond. Kie shakes him slightly, and there’s nothing. Shit. 

“C’mon, don’t fall asleep on me, JJ. You gotta stay awake.” Kie’s voice breaks. This is bad. This is really bad and Kie has no fucking clue what she’s doing. 

Before she can freak out too much, she takes a deep breath. One step at a time. Right now she just has to get JJ into her car. 

She lifts him up by his armpits, intending to drag him out of the house, and balks at the amount of blood in his hair. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. She might murder Luke Maybank. 

Luke Maybank. That reminds Kie. He’s still in the kitchen, presumably unconscious, so Kie needs to work fast. No time for emotions, just go.

She drags JJ to the front door, which she props open and surveys the stairs. These are not going to be fun. She maneuvers JJ so his back is facing out and drags him out. His boots bounce loudly on the steps and Kie winces each time. She really hopes she isn’t hurting him. 

Kie successfully gets JJ into the car. He’s sprawled out across the backseat, and Kie’s going to have to clean the blood, but that’s a problem for another time. She shuts the door and turns to get into the driver's seat, but-

Luke Maybank appears right behind her. Kie startles, she hadn’t even heard him walk up. 

“Take ‘em away, good-for-nothing piece of shit.” He says, standing with his arms crossed, staring at her. He’s clearly not sober and he’s slurring his words. 

Kie’s mind is telling her to get out, get far away from here, do not engage, but Kie doesn’t listen to her head. “JJ deserves so much better than you,” She spits out at him. 

Okay so maybe engaging with a high/drunk/both abusive asshole wasn’t her best idea, because Luke moves faster than Kie would have expected, considering he’s definitely not sober. His hand wraps tightly around her wrist and yanks her towards him.

“Oh and you would know, huh?” Luke’s grip is iron-tight on her arm. “You’re the bitch that he hangs around with all day, hiding from me?”

Kie didn’t think it was possible, but his grip tightens, “Did you help him steal my fucking boat, you little slut?”

Oh shit. Oh shit. Kie’s mind goes blank until she remembers all the self-defense shit that JJ taught her. JJ. Who goes through this shit with his dad, his own blood, constantly and is still one of the best people Kie knows. Fuck you, Luke Maybank. 

Kie twists out of his grip, using the thumb as the weak spot to thrash against. Luke looks stunned like he wasn’t expecting her to fight back. 

Then Kie punches him in the nose. 

He staggers back, holding his nose. He doesn’t howl around in pain like Rafe did when she decked him, instead he hisses curses under his breath. Kie doesn’t care, she gets in the car and guns it. 

-

On the way to the Chateau Kie considers her options. Hospitals are out, too many questions and there’s no way to pass this off as an accident. It would probably end with JJ shipped off to foster care, and Kie’s not about to be the cause of that. John B is still MIA (as far as she knows, she hopes that JJ would have texted her if he had made contact, all awkwardness aside). Pope is at the scholarship workshop and Kie doubts he has time to walk her through what to do. 

So Kie’s on her own. 

-

JJ’s still unconscious when they get to the Chateau, so she drags him out of the car and into the house. She doesn’t stop to think, there isn’t time for that, she just acts. 

She covers the pull-out coach in threadbare beach towels and somehow maneuvers JJ onto it. She doesn’t know how she does it, JJ’s much heavier than she is and she’s not exactly known for having an excessively strong upper body. But she does it and that’s all that matters. 

Next she gets the first aid kit from the bathroom and inspects the damage. 

His head is bleeding, but when Kie feels around, she doesn’t notice any bumps. It’s possible that his head just got cut open and he doesn’t actually have a concussion. She remembers learning in some kind of science class that cuts on the head bleed a lot because of the amount of blood in the brain. Kie takes that into consideration, but it doesn’t explain why JJ’s passed out. Maybe shock?

Fuck.

She pulls up his shirt to inspect the bruises and is shocked at what she finds. His ribs are painted black and blue.  _ Shit _ . Kie lightly runs her fingers across them, checking if they’re broken. JJ doesn’t wake up when she presses down but, yup, that’s definitely broken. 

She quickly googles ‘how to treat a broken rib’ and finds that she can actually take care of it. Broken ribs aren’t treated with any kind of cast, but pain meds and ice. 

Kie gets a bag of frozen peas out of the freezer that have probably been in there since before Big John’s disappearance, let’s be real. She wraps it in a hand towel and places it on the worst of JJ’s bruising. 

With that he jerks awake. 

“Hey JJ,” Kie says softly. His whole body tenses until he realizes it’s Kie in front of him, not his dad. He takes a breath and visibly relaxes. 

“Where am I?” He looks around wildly, like he doesn’t recognize the place he’s spent more time at than his own home. But then again, last time he was conscious, JJ was at his house. 

“The Chateau. You’re safe here,” Kie reassures him and hands him some Advil and a glass of water. “Take these.”

He swallows and groans slightly. 

“How do you feel?”

“Like shit,” He says and looks down at his shirt that has been pulled up and the ice on his chest and the vibrant bruising underneath. “Huh, so that’s why.”

“You also have a cut on your head, so you’re gonna have to sit up.” Kie informs him. 

JJ groans and pulls himself up into a seated position, holding the iced peas to his ribs. “Fuck.”

“Make sure to take deep breaths, I’m pretty sure you have a broken rib.” Kie says as crawls behind him to have better access to the cut on his head. 

“Mhm, more like three,” JJ winces. Kie hates that he knows what broken ribs feel like. 

She cleans his cut on his head as best she can, his hair keeps getting in the way, and gets some gauze from the first aid kit to cover it up. JJ keeps taking deep breaths that seem to rattle in his chest. 

Suddenly he straightens. “Kie…” He says and Kie immediately knows what’s coming. “You didn’t-”

“I did.”

He swears. “Pope called you?”

“Yup,” Kie moves out from behind him. “Lay down, it’s the best way to keep pressure on it.”

JJ lays down, but looks frustrated. “You could’ve gotten hurt-”

“But I didn’t-”

“But you could have!” JJ bursts, “You shouldn’t have gone in.”

“What, and leave you there to fucking bleed out?” She counters. 

“Yes!” JJ says, “That’s exactly what you should do!”

He looks at her with wide eyes, like he doesn’t think he deserved to be saved, like he honestly believed that Kie should have left him there, bruised and bloody with his father. Kie’s heart aches. 

“Well I didn’t,” She stands up. “Deal with it.”

She goes to the kitchen and grabs another bag of frozen vegetables, carrots this time. When she comes back and places the bag on his ribs, he’s silent. 

She cleans his wounds and dresses them as best she can, and all the while JJ stays quiet. He follows Kie’s instructions, but he seems distracted. She checks him for a concussion, and while she’s like 90% sure that he doesn’t have one, she doesn’t completely trust herself, so she gets him more ice to put on his head and makes sure he doesn’t fall asleep again. 

Once JJ’s completely cared for, cuts bandaged and bruises being iced, Kie steps out onto the porch and calls Pope. The sun is setting and it’s around dinner time, and Kie hopes Pope’s out of his workshop already. She crosses her fingers as the call rings. 

He picks up. 

“Pope,” Kie breathes a sigh of relief.

“Hey Kie,” His voice crackles through the speaker. “I was about to call you, I’ve got like ten minutes before they’re doing the final announcements lecture or something, but how is he?”

“It’s bad, it’s really bad.” Kie’s voice cracks. “He was, uh, unconscious in the car, and he’s got broken ribs and really bad bruising and, uh, a cut on his head, and I don’t think he has a concussion, but I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing, Pope.”

All the emotions Kie was holding back in the heat of the moment come flooding in as she explains what she’s done to try and help JJ. Life isn’t fair, and she knows that, but it makes her want to scream or cry or both. He doesn’t deserve this. 

Pope’s silent on his end, processing what she said, and Kie realizes she’s been crying. She sniffs. “Should I take him to the hospital?”

“I think you should ask him,” Pope responds. “And Kie, are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. Luke was unconscious most of the time anyway.” Him grabbing her is really the least of her concerns right now. 

“That’s not what I mean.” Pope says, and Kie knows it, but she really does not want to talk about her emotional state right now. 

“Well I’m fine. It’s just hard, ya know?” 

“Yeah. Hey, listen if you need anything just text me, and I’ll respond when I can. And I’ll be home tomorrow.”

“Okay, bye.”

“Take care of yourself.”

Pope hangs up. Kie stays outside for a moment and takes a breath. 

When she goes inside, JJ raises an eyebrow. “You know I could hear you, right?”

“Okay,” She comes and sits on the side of the edge of the pull-out. “Thoughts on the hospital?”

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” JJ shakes his head. 

“I figured.” Kie sighs. 

JJ gives her a small smile, “You know me well.”

“But, JJ, that means I’m taking care of you and I have no idea what I’m doing.” She explains. “I’m literally just googling it as I go along.”

“You don’t have to stay.” JJ’s smile disappears. 

“Oh no, I’m staying, I already texted my parents about staying the night-”

“You don’t have to-”

“What if I want to?” She counters, then balks. She’s already kissed him without his consent, she’s not about to force her presence on him. “Unless, I mean, I’m not, uh, if you don’t want me to stay-”

“Kie.” She looks up at him. “You can stay,” He reassures her with a smile.

“Okay, uh, cool. Are you sure you trust me though?” She asks. Kie just has to be sure. 

JJ nods resolutely. “With my life.”

Wow. Okay, that’s a lot. But regardless of messy feelings, Kie absolutely would trust him with hers. 

“So it’s settled.” She smiles.

So it is. She brings up a hand to brush back her hair, but JJ’s expression stops her midair. 

“What?” She asks. He looks horrified. 

He reaches out to her wrist, and, oh shit, those are bruises on her skin. Violent purple fingerprints from where Luke had grabbed her. 

“My dad did that?” JJ asks, except it’s not a question, it’s a statement. His voice is scarily level, like a calm day on the water hiding a strong undertow with the power to drown. 

Kie nods. 

“Fuck,” JJ tries to get up, wincing at the movement. 

“Woah, woah, woah, what are you doing?”

“I’m going-” 

He tries to get up, but Kie braces his shoulders. 

“JJ, no-”

“JJ, yes.”

“Stop, it’s fine-”

“No! It’s not-”

“I punched him.”

JJ stops struggling against her and stares at her, wide-eyed. 

“What?”

“I punched him.” Kie says and JJ continues to stare at her blankly. “In the face.”

A grin breaks across JJ’s face. “Holy shit Kie, really?”

“Yeah, you were in the car already, and all of a sudden he was out there, and he grabbed me and I used the twisty thing you taught me and he let go and I punched him.” Kie says. 

JJ laughs, “I am so fucking proud of you.”

Kie laughs along with him, but something still bothers her. She doesn’t feel bad about punching him, he absolutely deserved it, but Luke is still JJ’s dad. 

JJ seems to sense her doubts as his grin dims slightly. “Don’t worry about it, I’m not going back.”

“You better not.”

“But seriously, Kie, that’s kinda badass.”

-

Predictably, JJ hates being babied, and once the pain killers have kicked in, he insists on cleaning his own cuts and getting his own ice. Kie’s not about to stop him, she’s had enough of JJ’s blood in her life in the past few hours, so they hang out on the porch: Kie plucking at her ukulele and JJ messes around with his cuts. 

Once he’s deemed them acceptable (Kie still helps him with the one on the back of his head), JJ convinces her to share a blunt with him. 

“It’s medicinal Kie, pain relief!” He tells her and she begrudgingly agrees.

So they get high and watch an old movie, Kie can’t even remember the name, and they make fun of it the whole time. 

It’s pretty late (or pretty early, depends on your perspective) once they actually decide to go to bed. They crash into the pull-out couch, both of them too tired to make their way to the bed in the guest room. 

They lay far apart from each other, not touching, and usually Kie would be able to fall asleep pretty quickly, but for some reason she can’t. She still feels electrified from the day’s events and JJ’s breaths rattling between his broken ribs doesn’t exactly help. 

“JJ,” She whispers into the dark. She’s not sure if he’s still awake.

He is. He turns on his side to face her, “Yeah?”

Kie goes from being on her back to her side to face him. “Why’d you go?”

“I have no impulse control,” He jokes, eye’s closed like he’s half-asleep.

“Well, you’re not wrong,” Kie whispers back. If he doesn’t want to tell her, she’s not going to push him. She closes her eyes. 

JJ’s silent for a moment. “I mean, I’ve been living here for a month, thought I should go and check in on the place, make sure it hasn’t burnt down or anything, get some of my stuff, maybe some clothes.”

Kie opens her eyes and JJ’s studying her, “He wasn’t there when I got there. I have  _ some _ sense of self-preservation.” He shrugs with the one shoulder. “Thought I’d slip in and out, no problem, then he came home and was pissed about the boat, and, well, you saw the aftermath.”

Kie gets the impulse to throw her arms around him in a hug, but she doesn’t. “I’m sorry,” She whispers. 

“Not your fault,” JJ says, matter-of-factly.

And Kie’s knows it’s not, but she’s still sorry he has to go through it. “You deserve so much better.”

“Thanks, Kie,” JJ whispers back to her, and closes his eyes. Kie doesn’t want to interrupt his sleep any more than she already has, so she turns back onto her back.

After a while, she’s close to falling asleep, and she’s pretty sure JJ is too, based on how his breathing has evened out, until he whispers, “Kie?”

She hums in acknowledgment, but doesn’t turn to face him.

“Why’d you kiss me?” He whispers hoarsely. 

And there it is. Kie’s been wondering how long it would take for one of them to crack and actually talk about it (A small part of Kie hoped it would be forever). 

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.” Kie murmurs. She feels JJ’s burning stare on the side of her face and closes her eyes. “We’re good, right?”

“Yeah,” JJ says, and with that he rolls onto his other side. Kie’s gonna be honest, it doesn’t totally feel like they’re good, but she’s too tired to clarify. He’s probably tired too. Whatever. 

“Kie?” He asks after a pause, still faced away from her.

“JJ?”

“Can we talk about it tomorrow?” JJ asks in a small voice. 

“Yeah, sure,” Kie sighs. She’s not sure what JJ wants to talk about, it was pretty clear he didn’t want to kiss her. But she’s too tired to think too hard about it, and proceeds to fall asleep. 

-

Pope finds them in the morning (aka around noon). Kie and JJ haven’t moved from their previous positions and, unlike last time, they are not curled around each other. Kie wakes up with a start when Pope opens the door to the Chateau, but JJ doesn’t move. 

“Good morning,” Pope says, slightly awkwardly. It’s probably weird seeing your too best friends sleeping in a bed together after a rejected kiss. Kie will admit, it is a little strange, but they’re Pogues: they’re stronger than some silly feelings. Nonetheless, Kie gets out of bed as quietly as she can, and runs over to hug Pope. 

“Hi,” She says over his shoulder, “I missed you.”

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” He asks as he pulls back, and Kie chuckles slightly.

“Definitely not.” She makes her way to the kitchen, so they’ll be slightly further away from JJ, who’s still sleeping. “How was the workshop?”

Pope dives into a deep explanation of everything they did. Kie doesn’t totally understand everything he’s saying, but it’s fine. She’s just glad that Pope got this opportunity and that he really enjoyed it too. 

Apparently, Pope’s in consideration for the second, more advanced workshop, and after that he just has to go through an interview process, and he could get the scholarship. Kie’s insanely proud of him, and makes him promise not to run out on it this time. He agrees. 

“So…” Pope starts, looking at her with a raised brow, and Kie knows where this is going. 

“Nope, I’m not talking about this right now.” Kie whispers, “Especially with JJ in the room.”

She knows firsthand how easily it is to listen in on a conversation just because the other two think you’re asleep. 

“Fine,” Pope surrenders, “I’m just saying, if he didn’t like you, he would have slept in his bed, not out here.”

“What?”

“He doesn’t usually sleep out here, he sleeps in his room.” Pope tells her.  _ Huh.  _ Kie didn’t know that. 

“Whatever,” Kie rubs a hand over her face, “It was late, we were tired.”

Pope opens his mouth to say something more, but Kie quickly changes the subject. “We still haven’t heard from John B yet.”

His expression changes so fast that he could get whiplash. “What about John B?”

Okay, so maybe they had failed to tell Pope that John B and Sarah were currently MIA. Whoops. 

Kie quickly explains how they haven’t checked in since Saturday, while the burner phone lays on the table between them, unmoved and mocking them with it’s lack of phone calls. Their conversation goes from whispers to regular volume as it goes on, and they wake JJ up. 

“Pope!” JJ says, his voice rough from sleep, as he sits up. “You’re back, man!”

Pope smiles at him, “Hey bro, how are you doing?”

JJ’s wearing one of John B’s shirts (a regular t-shirt, not one of John B’s ridiculous hawaiian shirts that they tease him about never buttoning), which covers his bruising, as he gets out of bed. 

“I’m good,” JJ blatantly lies. He’s slightly wincing with every movement, so slight that if Kie didn’t know he got beat up yesterday, she almost wouldn’t notice it at all. 

“Really?” Pope asks, noticing it as well.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m like a cat, you know, nine lives and everything,” JJ says nonchalantly, brushing off Pope’s concern as he swallows some painkillers. The bruises on his face still stand out starkly against his tan skin. 

_ Okay, _ Kie wonders,  _ but how many lives do you have left? _

-

They all catch up, Pope recounting what he told Kie about his scholarship workshop to JJ. Then he makes a show of looking at his phone, and stands up:

“Sorry guys, my dad needs me back for some deliveries.” He doesn’t meet their eyes. 

Kie and JJ protest, he literally just got back after three days, but Pope just shakes his heads. 

“Maybe you guys can talk while I’m gone.” He looks Kie directly in the eyes, then leaves. Kie feels the blood rushing to her face. 

There’s a beat of silence as Kie refuses to look at JJ. Pope’s smart, she’ll give him that. 

“So, uh,” JJ clears his throat, “Wanna walk down to the dock?”

She doesn’t respond for a second, and JJ fixes her with a look, “We’re gonna have to talk about it sometime.”

“Yeah,” Kie sighs. She can do this, she’s mature enough to talk about her feelings. This is fine. “Yeah, let’s go.”

The walk to the dock is uncomfortable with silence. It’s not like them, usually they’re bantering or joking or just talking. JJ messes with his rings and Kie’s hands flit between her hair and her necklaces. She still can’t bring herself to look at him. 

They sit down on the dock and Kie’s eerily reminded of the conversation she had with Pope on his dock, the one where she told him she didn’t love him like that. So this is what it’s like to be on the other side of that conversation.

“Kie, you gotta look at me,” JJ says. Kie looks up and JJ’s playing with his split lip. “Why’d you kiss me?”

“I shouldn’t have done that,” She shakes her head and moves to look away, but JJ slides forward and raises his hand under her chin to guide her face back to him. 

“But why’d you do it?” JJ’s voice sounds wrecked. 

“It doesn’t matter.” 

“Yes, Kie,” JJ drops his hand back into his lap, “It matters, okay, I need to know if I was- if it was just a distraction, you know, if you were worried about John B and it was just a heat of the moment mistake.”

_ He’s giving her an out _ , Kie realizes with a start. She could blow it off and they could go back to being friends and everything would be fine. But JJ deserves the truth. 

“It wasn’t a distraction or a mistake,” Kie whispers. 

JJ looks at her, stricken, “What?”

Okay, so maybe that was the wrong thing to say, but Kie’s pretty sure she hasn’t exactly been subtle with her feelings. Like, c’mon man, they’ve almost kissed how many times?

Kie takes a breath, “You could never be a mistake, but I know you don’t feel the same, so-”

“Wait, wait, wait, feel the same? What?” JJ looks up at her wildly.

“JJ, I have feelings for you.” Kie says as calmly as she can, her heart about to burst it’s way through her ribs. 

“Are you serious?”

Kie rolls her eyes, “No JJ, I’m kidding about being in love with you.”

JJ stares at her.

Kie realizes what she just said. 

_ Oh no. Oh shit. Oh fuck.  _

She feels like she’s gonna throw up. She knew she had feelings for JJ, but whenever she thought about it, she always avoided the L-word. Fuck. Love is gonna be a lot harder to get rid of than some pesky feelings, and now JJ knows. Great. 

Speaking of JJ, he stares at her, his expression unreadable. Kie has no idea what’s going on in his head. 

Kie stands up immediately, with the full intention of walking away, but before she can take a step, JJ grabs her hand. 

“Can I talk now?” JJ stands up and his hand drops from hers. Kie doesn’t want to be rejected even more than she already has, but still she nods. 

He puts both of his hands on the side of her face and bites his lip slightly. Jesus, if he does the Gordon Ramsey idiot sandwich thing, Kie will kill him, feelings or not. 

But JJ does not do a Gordon Ramsey impression. Nope.

Instead JJ kisses her. 

_ JJ kisses her.  _

(In recent news: Kie is an idiot)

She kisses back, moving her lips against his, and bringing her hands to his waist, being mindful of his ribs. He bites her bottom lip, and wow, okay, he’s good at this. 

He pulls back slightly, not too far, their foreheads are still touching, their breaths heavy between them. 

“You know I’m in love with you, right?” He says.

Kie pulls back further so she can look him in the eyes, “What?” 

Because, no, Kie did not know this.

JJ laughs slightly, all the worry wiped from his face. “I thought I made it obvious, I flirt with you all the time-”

“You flirt with literally everyone all the time,” Kie protests with a smile. 

“Hey, you’re the one with the no Pogue macking rule,” JJ challenges. 

Kie smiles, and leans in, her lips almost touching his. “No one follows that rule, anyway.”

Their lips connect, this time messier and rougher than before. Kie’s hand runs through his hair, bringing them closer. Her lips suck slightly on his split lip, and JJ’s hands tighten on her hips and he makes a sound in the back of his throat that Kie doesn’t think she’ll ever forget. 

“House?” She barely breaks away and practically says the word into JJ’s mouth. 

JJ smiles against her, “Yes ma’am.”

Their lips reconnect and JJ slowly walks her backwards down the dock. 

It takes a while considering JJ’s exploring Kie’s mouth with his tongue, until at one point Kie gets impatient and slips her hand under his shirt, which causes JJ to basically pick Kie up, his hands on her thighs as she wraps her legs around his waist. It’s hot. 

Kie honestly doesn’t know how he does it, she’s not that light and JJ had gotten beaten up slightly over 24 hours ago, but he does it. Thanks, Advil.

When they get to the house, JJ kicks in the door and lays her on the bed. The same bed that they slept in together last night. The same bed that JJ had been passed out on yesterday. He comes down over her, his forearms keeping him up. 

“Hi,” He breathes.

“Hi,” Kie recaptures his lips in a kiss. This time they’re softer, more gentle, none of the urgent pace from before. 

JJ makes her way to her neck, mouthing and sucking on places that causes Kie to make sounds that she will forever deny making. 

Her hands find her way to the hem of his shirt, and she tugs. “Off?”

JJ gives her a wicked smile and pauses his attack on her neck. He sits back and pulls off his shirt, revealing both his abs and his bruises. Kie chooses to focus on the former, her hand coming up to gently ghost over the flat planes of his stomach. 

“Like what you see?” He smirks. It’s not new, seeing JJ without his shirt, far from it. But in this context, it’s very new and Kie can’t stop herself from exploring his torso with her hands. 

“Your ego doesn’t need that much of a boost.” She says, and JJ leans in. 

“So that’s a yes,” JJ whispers before meeting her lips. And, well, he’s not wrong. 

He tugs on the hem of her shirt, “Your turn.”

With JJ’s help she pulls her shirt off over her head and tosses it behind JJ’s back. JJ, ever the talker, goes silent, his eyes roaming her body. It’s nothing new, her bikini top is still on and she’s still in her shorts. She squirms under his gaze. 

“Anyone home?” She teases and waves a hand in front of his face.

JJ swallows. “You’re fucking beautiful, Kie”

Kie just smiles and pulls him down to meet her lips, and she can’t seem to stop smiling against him.

JJ breaks away to flutter kisses down her chest, but before he gets too far, Kie flips him onto his back, using the technique that he taught her just a few days ago. 

Their lips break apart momentarily, and Kie grins, pleased with herself. JJ stares up at her, his pupils blown. 

“Holy fuck, that was ridicoulously hot.”

Kie resists the urge to giggle and surges down to meet his lips. They move against each other for a moment, then against his lips Kie murmurs, “I learned from an expert.”

She starts kissing her way down JJ’s chest, pausing ever so often to flutter kisses around his bruises. She loves every part of him, and she wants him to know that. All the while, JJ swears up a storm, of course he can’t keep mouth shut, it’s classic JJ. 

She accidentally tugs harder than she meant to on his hair, and JJ makes a strangled sound. For a second Kie’s terrified that she’s pulled on his cut that had eventually scabbed over, but then JJ honest to god moans. 

For not the first time that day, Kie’s gut tugs, hot and dark. 

“Do it again,” JJ whispers, his voice wrecked. Kie reconnects their lips and pulls on JJ’s hair. JJ moans into her mouth, and rolls his hips against hers, and-oh, hello. 

JJ stills, until Kie lets her body speak for her as she rolls her hips against his. 

“Fuck, Kie,” JJ rasps, “You’re gonna kill me.” 

He then pulls the same move as she did, and flips her over, and wow that’s is fucking hot. Kie tells him such, and he grins. So much for not boosting his ego, but Kie can’t find it in herself to care. 

“Can I?” JJ asks, his hands hovering below her bikini top. Kie nods. The bikini she’s wearing doesn’t have padding and her nipples are very obviously hard underneath it. 

Surprisingly, JJ doesn’t immediately pull it off, instead he skims his hands over her top, and cups her breasts. He rubs her nipples with his thumbs, and Kie’s back arches from the touch. He smirks and presses kisses in the valley in between.

He makes like he’s going to pull her top off, which Kie would be fine with, by the way, but instead he skims over her breasts again, using one finger to trace the line of her bikini. 

“Tease,” Kie hisses, but the happiness in her voice takes away from the meaning. 

“You love it,” JJ smirks at her and, well, he’s not wrong. She pulls him down to her lips and-

“Hey guys!” Pope’s voice comes from down the driveway, and Kie and JJ freeze. “You guys better not have killed each other instead of talking it out!”

“Oh shit.” Kie whispers, just as JJ whispers, “It’s Pope.”

They stare at each other wide eyed for a second, then JJ scrambles off Kie and dives for their shirts, attempting to stay below the window line. 

“I have really good news,” Pope’s voice comes from closer than before. He’s walking up the driveway, and while it seemed like he was pretty chill with the idea of Kie and JJ together, being chill with it and walking in on them making out are two very different things. 

JJ tosses Kie her shirt and she hurries to put it on. JJ’s just barely pulling his on as Pope’s steps near the door. He looks like, well, he looks like he had been macking pretty hard on someone: his hair sticking up and his cheeks flushed and his slightly swollen lips. Kie probably looks the same, but there’s not really any time to fix that. 

The door opens. 

“In my bed, guys, really?” Says a familiar voice, and Kie looks up in shock. 

Standing in the doorway, grinning, is John fucking B. 

“We got the gold.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there it is! hope yall enjoyed it, and yeah i definitely had to end it on a cliffhanger haha. hope i did kie and jj justice with some slowburn that paid off in the end lol
> 
> as always, if you have any tips on how i can improve my writing, please let me! thank you so much for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> hehehe a cliffhanger!! hope yall enjoyed it because this is literally the longest thing i've ever written goddamn. but before you yell at me, lemme say this: jj and kie deserve slowburn excellence so i don't wanna rush them. i'd love to write a second part,,,maybe in a series ??? idk we'll see. on that note, lemme know what you think and if you have any comments on how i can improve my writing :)) thanks for reading!


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